Our first talk this today was from the guys at FuturLab and it was a really interesting lecture about how they created there pre-production on there new game that are currently working on. They are originally an Indie-based company that has been running for about 10 years now and the first game that they developed was Velocity for the PlayStation Portable, which was later rebranded as Ultra when it was moved onto other platforms. But what they wanted to talk to us about today was there new project Velocity 2.
Like the first game it is a 2D side scroller, as 3D requires a lot more software and money, and it play through, a lot like the first one does which is all about flying a space ship and then the new element that they have added into this game is the option to get out and explore other lands on foot. To begin with they spoke about the art behind the game and the visual designs that they produced to work towards a benchmark. The original game started off as a pixel based art style but this was quickly changed to remove any harshness and create more curves, which is what the new game will also used as it makes it appear a little bit more grown up. They go by the rule that you create a style in which can be created quickly and can be easy to adopt between artists to maintain consistency.
Characters
For this game they wanted to be able to create more bold and vivid looking characters, again this is all about evolving the characters and helping them to find a unique style to them which makes them more prominent and well-known. The music style goes down the tradition 80s arcade retro vibe, which is a lovely touch to add in as it is a game that relies on being quite retro as this is what the costumes have been designed around to; all-in-one suits. During this process the artists went through many different types of hair design as to ensure that you knew that it was the same person from the first game, just with those minor details changed to improve the character further.
The aliens that have been designed for this game are also very unique and interesting. The angle that they wanted the Vokh to be, which is the evil alien race in the game, was beautiful, imposing, angelic but also snooty as they desired perfection. When designing this race they ensured to use sharp edges, taking inspiration from the environment design of there home world, in which there would be red infused as this is used to symbolise that they are in charge. The other race of aliens, the Jintina, are a friendly bunch and will help Kai, the main hero during the game. This race is very different from the other; based on frogs, they have rounded features to them and wear layers of clothing over there bodies.
Vehicle and Prop Design
As the enemies of the game include very sharp edges it seemed only right to make the weapons that they used very angular as well so that they linked in together. The key to designing props, coming straight from the masters, is to know your resolutions. By this, they mean that ensure you know what platform you are designing for first as you don't want to be making a prop or vehicle that's small compared to the character when its going to be represented by three pixels on a PSP screen.
Animation
Due to the fact that in the sequel that character will be getting out the ship and walking around more animation needed to be used as there will be jumping, running and now even teleporting. To be able to do this they got real world references, in the form of images and then also video test footage and tested it out. They also ran a few tests as a 3D model to see if it would work but they wanted to keep to there original 2D style. For there animation they used whats called a Sprite Sheet in the software Texture Packer which is all of the frames of animation all on one sheet that contains coordinates that can be mapped when coding the game.
Environments
Like most of there concept art they wanted to link the game together, in a way that the Jintina's world contains a lot of curves, whereas the Vohk's world is made up of very angular and straight lines; both complement that characters well and show how they would be able to live here, even down to the Vohk's world being white but having those flashes of red in them.
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