Turn The Tide

my role

For this project, I was the creative lead and lead 2D artist of the team. In addition to this, because of our lack of game designers in the team, I also helped out with game design and mostly narrative design.

theme concept art

The early theme concept art shows a series of possible themes for the environment of the game. Because most of the team members are artists, this was one of our first priorities in order to be able to work on a logical narrative that fits the theme of the room the player is in.

early prop art

In addition to the art for the themes, I also worked on some early prop art to get a bit of a feel of what kind of shapes would be used in the props and what would fit well with the different themes. At this point, all the art was still very experimental, because we also didn't have a solid narrative or gameplay yet.

theme prop art

To bring props and themes together, I then worked on some standard props with the different themes applied to them; this to give my team members as well as the client a clearer idea of what the differences between the themes would be. We eventually decided to go for the laboratory theme, but not with the futuristic assets; the official environment would end up as a combination of the laboratory theme with the bunker and space props.

render target

I created another art piece for one of our client presentations to communicate the feel of the game. It communicates the urgency of the game and the core themes, as well as the main game mechanic the player will be dealing with.

robot art

The game features a robot which serves as the player's buddy throughout the gameplay. I made sketches for this robot, as well as the final design and a turnaround sheet. I also added some additional sheets with details to communicate my vision better to the 3D artist who will work on the model.

environmental prop art

For the project, I've made concept art for the environmental aspects of the room; so the walls, floors, and everything else that comes with it. The laboratory theme from the earlier art is mostly visible in these art pieces, with the light and bright colors to match.

prop art

In addition to the environmental assets, there's also of course the rest of the props of the game related to the gameplay. The assets match the rest of the environment in colors, with bright orange accents to create contrast.

interface & ui design

The game features several in-game screens that give the player information. I worked on the interface design for these screens. The images on the right show some examples of what the interfaces would look like. All text elements and correct icons and the like would be implemented in Unity.

environmental posters

To add some flavor to the environment the player spends the entirety of the game in, we decided to design some environmental posters to add to it. I worked on these posters, and they are meant to give the player just a little bit more context to some of the elements of the story if they happened to miss it in the voice lines of Zoom the Robot.

promotional art

Since the project would be posted on itch.io, we needed some promotional art for our page. I made a few panels which describe the gameplay and should draw the attention of potential new players.

reflection

This project is the first long-running project I've worked on, and it came with a couple of challenges. Our main challenge was that we had to put together a game design-heavy game without a game designer, and as a result we burned through many iterations before we could finally start working on producing the actual assets.

On the bright side, I was able to create a lot of meaningful and useful art for this project. I have learned a lot about how to draw props in a clear style, which allows 3D artists to turn it into a model; but at the same time I really wanted all the art to look professional and well put together, which I feel like I've succeeded at as well.