Atomic-city: Difference between revisions

'''I love creating little worlds''' and one thing I strongly believe in from a design point of view is the power of '''revisiting levels to uncover secret areas and missions''' it also re-uses artwork and is labor saving when creating new levels and events. All the design in Medievil worked wonderfully, I was surrounded by a fantastic team and as it was our first game in total 3D '''there was a great feeling of pioneering''', every new task we achieved on the humble Playstation was a real step for us - I still remember getting our first very basic textured landscape on the Dev-kit at about 6-00am and the excitement that caused was a '''magic moment that may never be repeated'''!

When I think back to my working methods on Medievil they were very basic (around 1995/6)! I would rough out a level on a piece of paper, the concept artwork that I would design was very basic, kind of childlike, like playschool (no photoshop). These drawing were then built in a very low polygon form in a software package called ''''Nichimen.'''' I would then draw most of the textures in Photoshop 2, I did not even have a Wacom pen then so they were all drawn with a mouse which seems incomprehensible now!  

The above crayon drawings were the first conceptual visuals of how the game might appear on screen. At an early stage it was decided that the game would only have three on rail camera modes - a camera behind Dan, camera to the side of Dan (sideways scrolling) and a camera above Dan. As our technology grew  we used all manner of camera angles to follow Dan throughout the game.

=====Art Style=====

Medievil art style. Visually the game Medeivil was to have been inspired by the movie 'The nightmare before Christmas', a warped gothic world (this was before anyone else had used this art style other than Mr Burton). We wanted our world to be a lot more colourful than TNBC so I spent some time creating little crayoned drawings depicting what the terrain in Medievil will look like. We wanted our worlds to be as curvy with lots of ups and downs and as wonky as possible.

=====Zombies=====

Pictured to the left are early designs for the villain of Medievil; '''[[Zarok]] the sorceror'''{{sic}}. Zarok actually turned out rather camp which gave him an endearing quality as a villain and suited the quirky fun nature of Medievil. To the right are designs for the city of madness, a domain that Zarok seeks to control. 3D render of the city of madness by Jason Riley. To the far right are extracts from one of my note books.

=====Knights=====

Evil zombie knights. As the game progresses the zombies become more powerful and the player has to outwit a whole army of zombie knights from range from [[Spectres|flying spear knights]] to [[Ghouls|flame throwing ghouls]] to the [[Armoured Knights|bloated fat knights]] that belly barge you to a watery grave in the swamps. To the right is an example of one of my animation pages that I would give to the animators as a guide line to how a character is to move.

=====Pumpkins=====

The walking pumpkin monsters. A very early level design saw Dan navigating an overgrown gorge populated by pumpkins that have been mutated by magic. I found the pumpkin monsters to be quite cute as well as menacing. The level culminated in a battle with the king of all pumpkins the Pum-king. To the right is the geometry design for the farmyard where the Pum-king rules, his roots have sucked all the moisture from the land and his pseudo-pods must be hacked away. A nice touch was the fish flapping about on the surface of the dried up ponds.

The populated (the living not dead) areas of Gallowmere have been tainted by the magic of Zarok causing the inhabitants to go mad, attacking Dan on sight. The village through which Dan must travel is a twisted warped place based upon a hill, I was very happy with the crazy skewed geometry we had in this level. To the right are designs for the [[The Asylum Grounds|Asylum hedge gardens]], I designed a lot of riddle puzzles for this level (relayed to you by [[Jack of the Green|Jack of the green]], I{{sic}} character I read about in English mythology). The riddles had physical manifestations in the form of [[Hedges|hedge sculptures]]. A very nice level to have worked on.

=====Swamps=====

The swamps. Dan has to navigate his way through the treacherous site of a [[Battle of Gallowmere|great battle]]. The drowned corpses of the knights have swollen to bloated proportions and attempt to belly barge Dan from the safety of dry land. There were some great features on this level such as the massive ghostly dragon snake you could release that acted as a smart bomb. The weird creature in the middle was an abandoned design for the [[The Swamp Guardian|swamp boss]], he was a gigantic creature that rose from the swamps, occasionally blowing a fountain of mud out from his blow hole and if Dan is not careful he would have been blown up into the air and injured. To the right is a concept for a dragon-boat, again another concept that was dropped due to time.

=====Gameplay Design=====