As I previously mentioned in a post about participating in a game jam called the "Ludum Dare", I've just recently finished working on another game jam with the society for the Global Game Jam fest that happened this weekend just gone.
The Global Game Jam is considered the world's most significant game creation across the entire globe. Like the Ludum Dare, it is a "hackathon" focused entirely on game development and creation. This game jam is a way to connect the world together by being creative and expressing ourselves with each other through the art form of video games. Often when the event takes place during a weekend early in the new year, we have to make a video game within a 48-hour time crunch exploring each fundamental of a video game, including programming, iterative design, narrative, or artistic expression. Again, I was working with a group of people from the Video Game Development society to help create a video game during these conditions to meet the event's criteria.
The theme we got given this year was "Duality", which then led us to think of our game "A Drop of Duality", where in honour of the Year of The Tiger, you play as a baby tiger falling from the sky, and the goal is to avoid obstacles and make it to the bottom of each level. To make the game fit the theme of "Duality," every level seems to have two dimensions, and that switching between them helps the player reach the end of the level.
My role in the project was different to the Ludum Dare project. Instead, I had to create backgrounds for three different levels. This was nerve-wracking as my team wanted my illustrations to be the game's focal point and really make it stylised and unique as they hold a considerable part of the game mechanics (switching from different dimensions). As I have just mentioned, I had to create backgrounds for three different levels, making six in total (two for each level) to finish my side of the project. It was hard work because it tested how fast I could illustrate within 48-hours, in fact, less than that because we took Friday night just planning the game in depth.
Overall, this part of the project was exciting to work on and allowed me to practice my background/environment illustrations. I was more involved in society again, which I enjoyed because it made me feel like I was part of the community when working with them. Participating in these types of projects allows me to gain more experience and more work to show within my portfolio.
Edit (17.04.2022): However, I wanted to include this project within my component two work for Creative Design Practice. It was technically a live brief and relevant to the career path I wanted to go down after studying at university. After speaking to Andrew, he suggested developing the project more as the project wasn't substantial with just the background artwork, with which I agree entirely.
Therefore, to develop the project further, I redesigned the logo and created poster designs. I wished I had thought about redesigning the UI for the game. Also, looking back at the brief, I really hated the red text and the simple buttons that the team decided to go with for the UI. It could have been because we were running out of time, but I wished I had thought about doing that rather than the logo as I struggled to create a better logo.
As my logo design skills aren't as strong as my illustration skills (e.g.), I wanted to challenge myself on making a better logo for the video game. On the other hand, I overthought the design and made it overcomplicated again, as I have done in the past. I really do think I should spend some time researching and learning more about the fundamentals of a logo, as I just think I make them overly detailed.
Compared to the logo design, the poster designs, there isn't really much to say about them, especially when critiquing them or looking for where I could improve. I am happy about each poster design, and I can't spot any critique for them, especially the poster with the cityscape. I loved this poster design due to the composition and the serif typeface I ended up using – as it has that "vaporwave" feel I wanted it to be.
Though I wished I was more creative with the typographic poster design with the teardrop. I felt like I rushed it because I mainly created it to learn more about Adobe Illustrator as I am not used to that program (due to me using Clip Studio Paint for my illustration work). I hope to learn more about Illustrator soon as I've been noticing that many graphic design-based jobs require knowledge of the program. This could put me at a disadvantage when applying for jobs compared to other applicants, so hopefully, I can get past my hatred of using Illustrator to have more software skills.
I'm glad that I developed this project further to include it within my university coursework. It allowed me to step back and practice more on the fundamentals (or "basic") of graphic design outcomes - rather than being so specialised with game design. Though hating creating posters as time moved on, it gave me a chance to play around with the colours I had established from the original background illustrations and composition more. Developing this project further allowed me to get used to how Illustrator works, making me consider using software when creating my work.
Again, if I were to change anything, it would be redesigning the UI to a more exciting design and getting rid of that ugly red type. I was honestly quite offended that whoever decided to go with that design choice didn't ask me to work on that with them.
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