So I suppose it's time I posted something a bit more substantial than just links to things that inspire me, so I'm gonna talk about my discovery project.
This term we are required to create something; anything we wish in any medium we wish, we can use it as a precursor to our final project or simply as an opportunity to explore working in a field we haven't before.
Though I came to Foundations uncertain of where I wanted to end up (or even if I would be able to attend VFS for another year) I've pretty much set my sights on Game Design now. So, while I don't know if this will ultimately tie into my final project, I have decided to head in that direction for my discovery project.
Since one of my most favourite things to do in the whole wide world is draw weird monstery creatures, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to design creatures for a mock video game, if I have time I may do more and develop the game world a bit, but my main focus is going to be on the monsters.
At first I was thinking of picking different environments (jungle, aquatic, mountains, plains) and developing a creature for each one, researching animals from each environment to create believable monsters. However I've decided to instead pick just one environment and design creatures for that one environment.
So I've picked desert as my choice. I'm thinking of designing a couple of domestic creatures and some wild creatures.
For the domestic creatures:
A Pack animal - similar in role to an ox or donkey, something that would pull wagons and such
Livestock - right now I'm thinking something sheeplike, though I might move more towards a goatlike design since all that wool in the desert just seems... silly to me
A Herding Animal - Think along the lines of a sheepdog, but it'd be closer to a jackal or desert fox. these would keep the aforementioned livestock in check
For the wild creatures... I'm not sure what I'll do yet, probably a couple of smaller monsters an maybe one bigger one, since these are the things that would be fought for exp.
Yeah... I'm going more RPG with this, probably fantasy as well, but not high fantasy like Dragon Age, something more along the lines of Monster Hunter.
I could also design monsters geared towards different game genres... but I dunno, I kind of prefer the idea of thinking of one game concept and thinking of monsters to fit into that single game world.
I'd say stick with designing for one world. Gives you the challenge of making them unique, but at the same time keeping a unified theme or look'n'feel. Also, since you might be playing with scale, it'd be cool to see a human figure nearby just to give the brain an idea of how big something is. Something like this picture comes to mind: http://vnmedia.ign.com/nwvault.ign.com/NWN2/creatures/MM35_PG76.jpg
ReplyDeleteI think it's cool you're doing some less fantastical creatures too. Lots of people would go straight for dragons and demons and stuff, but creating some domesticated animals as well makes for a nice challenge. I find they're overlooked when designing creatures comes to mind, when in fact something like a pack animal can be an important character in a story. I look forward to seeing more!
Also: Yay we get a Kim in Game Design! Any idea when you're going to start your next year?
Thank you
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I got the idea for a desert setting, the idea of defending trade caravans from desert beasties popped into my head, so I wanted to make some sort of creature that could be used to pull wagons or heavy loads.
I'm on the waitlist for the June start date, and my student adviser said there's a good chance I'll get in just because it's a fair amount of time away and students (particularly international students) will likely be shifting their schedules around.
Now I just need to watch like a hawk for that scholarship, and hope it's being offered this year and hope I get it. Otherwise I have to hope some bank out there is willing to loan me thirty thousand dollars.