#all because they saw me struggling to figure out how to make pixel art

[moonionraccoon]

I got handed a body base by one of my partners/music producer @blueberrythefrog

And managed to actually improve that one DJ sprite idea that I previously posted

It might not actually be used in the game but I still really like how it turned out :O

[krithidraws]

This is gonna be personal ramblings so feel free to scroll past! No judgement here.

For so long I’ve been worried about my artistic transition to making more self indulgent media and doing things that are fun for me, mostly because I spent my whole adult life and a lot of my childhood bringing up this blog and growing this audience. For years I constantly worried about how popular I would be and if I would end up in obscurity, posting highly involved and complicated pieces to no one. When I posted pixel fuecoco I worried they same thing.

But some of my long time mutuals saw it, and for the first time that was enough for me. I got to share something I was proud of with the people I respect and admire, and that felt nice.

I think what changed is that for the first time, I’m in a position in my life where I don’t feel like I’m struggling for relevance or purpose. I like my job, I feel wanted and appreciated there. I have good relationships that build me up instead of tear me down. My life is okay now. I feel okay about it! So now, all that seems to matter is that I like what I post. I think that slaps

I’ll probably never be 100% “cured” from post pressure, but I do think it says something that I don’t feel compelled to fight against what makes me feel artistically fulfilled lately. I’m posting things that are experimental and new and maybe in 10 years I’ll consider them kinda ugly, but like, who cares? Apparently not me.

Before I set you free from this ramble I want to thank everyone who has engaged with my blog in any capacity. Even that anon who said my art kinda sucks, bc frankly all I felt was excited that I was popular enough to get anon hate. Y’all make this so much more fun, and you’ve been there while I was figuring out how to be there for myself. Thank you so much.

[just-a-mod]

I played Soul Void : Redux.

starting this off with : this is a good review and a happy thing

i am putting it under a read more for spoiler purposes uwu

about 5 or more years ago, i first played Soul Void. i found it on tumblr, and thought 'wow, that looks interesting' and showed it to my at the time GF

we both sat down and played it, me watching her at first, before deciding i wanted to play it along side her and go through the experience

getting into this game, immediately i began to see parts of myself in it. struggles i've had, words i've heard from others and from myself. i looked at the characters around me and felt them resonate with me and i felt.

feelings. sorrow, grief. the want to help, compassion and the hopeful feeling of 'don't give up, it will get better!'

i wanted to help them, and in turn by the end of the game, wanted to help myself

that was 5 years ago

i haven't played since, and not for a lack of not wanting to, just not feeling i needed to. i still remembered The Seeker, i remembered how The Leech and The Waiting were. i remembered how it felt, and i continued on.

then i began to forget, but still, i didn't go back. 'not yet', 'i don't need it yet'. it felt like

lately, it's felt like i did. a refresher, a chance to...process? a chance to acknowledge 'hey, these are struggles. these are feelings, but they can be helped. they can get better.

then i saw Redux was coming out. 3-4 months or so ago, i saw the update was set to release July 26, and i waited.

i'd forget for a few weeks, remember, check the date, and then go back to the day to day, only to repeat the pattern a few more times.

yesterday, i remembered. yesterday, i checked the date.

yesterday after D&D, i threw myself into playing again. and it was everything i remembered it to be.

it feels, oddly enough, like a medicine. a kind of salve that stings and soothes at the same time. my mental health isn't (and hasn't been of late) the greatest. victories in some places, loses in others. but progress, i believe, all the same.

going into Soul Void, i get to see all of these people doing their best. encouraging each other, the player and myself to do our best.

seeing The Waiting, The Husk, The Seeker. The Leech. all of them

new faces too, people i hadn't spoken to before! people i had yet to befriend! places i hadn't' seen!

i stepped into the game and hearing new music, reading new dialogue, having a chance to laugh and feel pain and sympathy and 'oh girl, SAME' energy.

getting a chance to stare evenly at the Grim, to find them less scary and more funny this time around.

getting to help The Seeker.

getting to HUG The Seeker.

getting the necklace. having it in the real world. the message behind it.

(ngl i'd pay some amount of money for that necklace as merch, by the way, if not try to juts make it myself. just tell me how it looks and by golly i will figure out some kind of way)

but i sat, and i loved, and i teared up and cried. i felt an ache in my chest that was soothed the further i went in

i listened to my own words being so automatically offered

'you'll be okay'

it'll be alright'

'this will pass'

'you'll get better'

offered to pixels on a screen that held a reflective piece of something i can see inside of myself, and it reminds me to share those with myself.

Soul Void is a game that sits in a special place in my heart. along side shows like Inuyasha and games like Undertale. it is a game that changed my life in an important time, in an important way.

for years to come, i will revisit it. for years to come, i will remember how every one looks at the end of the game, when you've helped them all. when you've helped yourself.

i will be drawing art of Hugging Seeker.

(also i wish we could hug more people, like The Waiting and The Leech. im not upset we cant, i just also wish we could.)

((also also does any one else have such an emotional attachment to The Waiting because i stg i kinda wish we could just sit with him, as the veins stop pulsing? so he's just not...alone..? but idk that's me))

@kadabura from the bottom of my heart and soul, thank you for making this game. Thank you for updating it.

thank you for all the work you've put into it, and for making it a free to play game.

thank you for sharing it with the world, as this game is one of the most beautiful and cherished experiences i've had in my 30 some odd years of life.

thank you for making such a beautiful story and journey that can allow people like me to see kindness for ourselves

i was originally going to send an ask, but tumblr just does not have enough space in one ask for me to express my love for this game.

Thank you so much. i hope your days are filled with the joy and strength to keep getting new ones, and that your nights are filled with dreams of laughter and music

for any one who may be reading this and NOT know what this beautiful game is

and the beautiful soul who made it

Thank you @kadabura

Be safe and Be at peace <3

[zachsgamejournal]

COMPLETED: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge

This is what fun looks like.

We're going to talk about it: my past with TMNT. I grew up on this. Seriously, the first comic was released in 1984. That's when I was born. Though, honestly, I never read them. I did own all four turtles, their van, and their blimp. I dressed up as Donatello for my kindergarten showcase, and enjoyed all the movies from the 90's--including the musical tour: Coming Out of Their Shells.

But my favorite why to experience it was through video games.

I remember seeing the Arcade beat'em up at my local skating rink. It was four player and awesome. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's II was available on the NES. My cousin had it and I regularly demanded we play it together. Unfortunately, at my young age, I could not hit A and B consistently enough to one-hit all the enemies and I struggled dodging dangers. Still, there was just something so approachable and fun about the experience. I loved the clever places they would hide foot soldiers and the environmental interaction. Also the skate board section was a blast.

I once rented Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1 on NES and I did not care for it. So moving on.

I bought TMNT 3 for NES, it should be better because it's the next game. I really appreciate the change in environments (the turtles start at the beach). It was neat how A/B now performed really cool special moves, but frustrating that it cost life to do so. Anyway, it was a fun game but I struggled to get very far.

I then saw Turtles In Time in the arcade and got really excited. I loved the wackiness of it, like stepping on a loose board and getting smacked in the face by the other end, Looney Tunes style. I didn't play much of the arcade, but I think I rented the SNES version once. Maybe?

In 6th grade, I made a new friend who had TMNT 3 for NES. I asked to play it, for nostalgia's sake, fully expected defeat but we actually beat the game in one sitting. I was impressed with us, and felt closure.

Anyway, seeing Shredder's Revenge previews I got it. Pixel-Art games are totally in right now, and will probable be a sub-genre for years to come. We also seem to have a habit of accelerating how quickly we reboot nostalgia. I don't know why 2022 was deemed as a good time to make a sequel but here it is and they nailed it.

Obviously it's got pixel art: easy win. But it has modern level of production design. The environmet does not appear to repeat like the classic games and there are tons of unique animations for the enemies: such as eating a popsicle or posing as a fast food clerk. While almost all the levels take place in New York City, they each feel very unique. Like in the classic games, the foot soldiers all look the same except for their color and wielded weapon, which match. This gives an easy indication to the player what kind of attacks to prepare for. There's multiple hover-board sections that help break up the beat 'em up action and keep up the fun.

Speaking of the beat'em up: this is where the game evolvied from the original. The older games basically had an attack, special attack, and jump attack. But there's a bit more going on here: jump attacks as you rise, attacks in the air, and attacks as you fall allow for a variety of strategies when facing different enemies. And each enemy seems to have their own weakness. Like the Triceratops guys (yeah, there are triceratops guys), they'll use their horns repel aerial attacks with their horns, but are week to basic ground attacks. Other enemies need to attacked exclusively from the air. Figuring out how best to beat your foe is key.

The game is short, which is why I beat it. Had it been longer I wouldn't have committed. I bought Xbox GamePass and plan to remain a subscriber. I'm trying out the streaming and I was excited to see a 3 hour game available. At one point I did get stuck on a level. It had two bosses and the pizza (health refills) were poorly placed. It basically took me switching to a character that had more extra lives so that I could sacrifice a life or two. By the time I beat it, I had actually gotten pretty good at it, so I maybe didn't need to switch.

The characters each level up. It's interesting. This unlocks new moves, special moves, hit points, and extra lives. The last part is a bit weird. I had committed to using Donatello through the whole game (he's my favorite) but my kids demanded I try the others. Don was already at level 5 and then I started switching around. April was pretty fun to use! But then none of my characters had enough extra lives to fight the double boss level. I switched back to Donny and finished the game that way. It's a little sad that the lives limit the player's ability to switch things up. But it's pretty easy to replay levels, so one could grind if they were inclined. The level-select map feels a lot liek the overworld map of TMNT.

The story was near non-existent. Shredder was collecting the parts for Krang and then unleashed Krang. But then they took over the Statue of Liberty and turned it into the Statue of Tyranny. It was funny and fit the weird themes of the older games and cartoons.

Anyway, it was a fun way to spend the afternoon. I'm sure my kids will want to play at some point.

[xxairo-dev]

Next Log

So I started making a 2D pixel art game. Welcome to my new Dev blog!

No official name, but the unofficial name is Bowfish.

(TLDR and Dev log with pretty gifs at bottom)

Hello internet, friends, and 2020 -- those of you that have been following me all this time know that I’ve been doing art for a loooong time. Even before I got into digital art in 2010, I’ve been drawing with paper and pencil for as long as I can remember and probably started playing video games right at the same time. For reference, my earliest memories of video games consist of Lemmings 3D on PS1, followed shortly by Rayman and Spyro the Dragon. 

I’m still a big Spyro fan, also pretty sure this is how I became obsessed with dragons in general. 

Science based dragon MMO girl, wherever you are -- I feel you, I am you.

Basically, I’ve been playing video games all my life (to the detriment of my parents) and I owe it to gaming for igniting my early artistic ambitions. In fact, I remember learning how to draw by copying the character art of Neopets and Sonic Advance before one day stumbling upon one of my dad’s Game Informer magazines and being blown away by the art that I saw in there (particularly the WoW art). I’m pretty sure that was when I was first introduced to Big Boy™ game art and instantly thought, “Whoa, I want to be able to draw like that”.

Later, when I got my first drawing tablet and started making digital art, it became “I want to draw for a video game”.

Even later, when I learned that being a video game artist was not a very realistic career path and opted to pursue a bachelors degree in biology instead of art, it became “I want to draw for a video game... on the side”.

Even later-er, when I got my degree in 2017 and started working full-time and realized that work saps you of all energy and motivation to work on projects at home, it became “I want to draw for a video game... some day”. 

Well, today here we are in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, I got furloughed from my biology job due to the quarantine. I spent four months passing time, thinking that I’d go back to work soon. But by the end of July, I was at wit’s end of what to do with myself after getting burnt out on a number of hobbies, games, shows, books, etc. without spiraling into some very expensive hobbies (hello aquariums) with the money I wasn’t making. I badly needed to find something productive to do that I thought would also benefit me in the long run i.e. post-quarantine, and unfortunately I couldn’t work on wet lab techniques at home.

“Learn to code” is what my parents have said to me about a thousand times for the past 5 years. “Learn to code” is what I did try for about two weeks with Code Academy a few years ago before realizing that none of what I was learning was going to stick because I wasn’t programming in any part of my daily life. As a biologist, in evolution we like to call this “if you don’t use it, you lose it”. 

I know all too well about how coding is one of the best skills you can learn. However, I also know myself all too well to know that learning code for the sake of learning code wasn’t going to work for me. I wanted to wait to learn when the right situation presented itself, ideally when I would have an opportunity to use it almost every day at like a job or something.

Well, one of my good fellow artist (and biology) friends had recently taken the plunge into creating his first video game Meganura earlier in the year. I was (and still am) seriously -- and I cannot emphasize this enough -- impressed by his progress, dedication, and ability to learn coding for this game. Or more frankly, I was seriously impressed by his dedication and progress in to learning how to code for this game.

Meganura in all it’s crispy pixel-y goodness. Man, my friends are talented.

I dwelled on this for a while. 

I always considered making a game to be out-of-reach because I absolutely could not muster up the motivation to learn a single drop of code without being paid to do so after 1) being beaten over the head by “learn how to code” for so long and 2) having already tried and given up in the past. 

But as it got harder to sleep well, eat well, and feel happy during the quarantine, I feel like I hit a rock bottom where I felt like if I didn’t make a big effort to find a new purpose, then I was probably going to become depressed. To preface this, I have experienced depression before, and ever since I got out it has been my goal in life to never experience it again. 

The only way I was going to survive this quarantine was to give myself a new “job”.

I already had a creative mind and the skills to create art and animations for a game. I already had a lifetime of game playing experience that had formed a detailed list of specific mechanics and visual details that I knew I wanted or didn’t want in a game. I already had an analytical and detail-oriented mind (thanks biology... or thanks videogames?) that liked to plan and build things. 

All it would take is just a little bit of code...

If you’ve read this far, thanks for listening and I hope some of you hear yourselves in my story.

TLDR;

I am just a daytime biologist and hobby digital artist with zero coding experience.

I’m extremely proud to say that since 07/29/20, I have been successfully developing and coding my own 2D pixel art video game in Unity and am in full swing!

This is the start of my dev blog, where I’ll be logging my progress and thoughts throughout this journey for like-minded and aspiring individuals. 

My Goals:

- To create everything from scratch -- art, scripts, etc.

- To create a game about bow hunting with intuitive drag/release controls

- To create a game that has cooking and campfires

- To create a game with pretty water graphics

- To create a game that has sushi and cats

- To have a playable demo by mid 2021 (my guess for the end of quarantine)

How I’ve been learning C#:

I have been following along with YouTube tutorials to create a base script and then looking up things in Unity’s scripting documentation to expand and modify my code to achieve exactly what I want. I’ve been learning C# and how to read documentation through almost entirely pattern recognition (e.g. mimicking and experimenting with code I’ve copied from tutorials and recognizing keywords in documentation) and turning to Google or my Tech Career Peers™ for help when I get stuck or to clarify things.

The key thing is that even after copying some code, I read the documentation and figure out how every line of code in my script works before moving on.

This is because after spending a few days of looking up YouTube tutorials, I realized there were no tutorials for the exact bow controls that I wanted. Instead, I ended up watching multiple tutorials and learned how all of their scripts worked before combining and modifying pieces together. Then, I started relying entirely on documentation to write lines of code. 

I don’t know how many original lines of code I’ve written so far, but there are so many now and I am so proud of all of them.

So anyway, here’s what’s happened over the past 2-3 weeks.

Dev Log:

7/29/20

- Came up with an idea for a game

7/30/20

- Installed Unity and started watching Unity tutorial videos

7/31/20 

- Created water shader via shader graph (no coding required!)

- Created a basic background, player sprite, bow sprite, and arrow sprite in Photoshop

08/03/20

- First time coding in C#

- Struggle to code in Notepad++, switched to Visual Studio Code

08/06/20

- Created physics based slingshot controls for the bow and arrow with a line renderer bowstring

- Colliders!

08/09/20

- Unable to find a way to pull arrow back horizontally (-X) regardless of mouse Y movement (OnMouseDown)

- Decided that slingshot controls are for slingshots, not bows and arrows

- Scrapped physics based slingshot controls due to overcomplication (rip)

08/10/20

- Created new projectile based controls that still include drag/shoot physics

08/11/20

- Limited rotation of the bow while aiming to max 45° and min -45°

- Developed distaste for vector algebra

- Made it so that if you don’t drag far enough, you won’t release an arrow

08/12/20

- Created a trajectory line coming off the bow

- Made arrows fade away after colliding

- Created git repository to keep all project files backed up on github (Don’t wait to do this! Should’ve been done on day 1)

08/14/20

- Added physics and collider to player

- Allow you to face and move left/right with the A and D keys + updated bow controls to match

- Created left/right movement while aiming + updated bow controls to match

- Created mouse drag line for development use

- Created waterline

- Made it so the bow resets to it’s default position if you haven’t used the bow for over 2 seconds

08/15/20

- Updated Player sprite in Photoshop

- Obtained Asesprite

- Created walk animation

08/16/20

- Created  bow walk, bow equip, and bow unequip animations

Next Log

[jorrmungandr]

2019 was a good year for games.

Lots of interesting new ideas in the space, and some refinements of old ones. Here’s a list of my personal favorite games of this year, in no particular order. Making an ordered list can be fun, but it’s ultimately pretty pointless.

Video games are such a diverse medium at this point that it’s really like comparing apples and oranges. How does Baba Is You stack up against Dragon Quest XI S? They have almost nothing in common, and their aims are so different that it makes no sense to compare them directly.

Speaking of….

Baba Is You

There are a lot of indie puzzle games out there. Making a little mind-bending puzzle is something that’s easy to do on a relatively small budget. There are also a lot of games that mimic old pixel art aesthetics of earlier game systems, to greater and lesser success. Making a truly great puzzle game, though, is a true accomplishment. Something that combines a wildly different array of elements in interesting ways, but maintains a simple readability that allows you to return to puzzles after months away and instantly recognize what’s going on.

Baba Is You is a game that accomplishes this and more. It operates on very simple, basic rules, but the way they escalate over time and require you to think outside more and more boxes with every single puzzle is simple astounding. A lot of puzzle games escalate their difficulty so quickly that it’s easy to get discouraged, put off by the impossible tasks you’re being asked to perform. Where Baba shines is that it gives you a perfect runway, teaching you things slowly but surely through a series of challenges.

This is a game where you will instantly go from feeling like the world’s greatest super-genius to a complete and utter fool in a matter of moments, from finishing one stage to starting the next. Over and over again, for dozens and dozens of levels. No game has ever better demonstrated the value of brain rest, stepping away from a problem and letting your subconscious work on it for a while. Every time I came back to a puzzle after a couple hours, I would suddenly see some option I never saw before.

One final note, the graphics are actually a perfect fit for this game. A lot of times, pixel art feels like a gimmick, something to do when you don’t have a good idea, or just mindless nostalgia-baiting. But here, it serves a gameplay purpose, giving you an absolutely clean view of the elements in play at a glance, and also serves as an homage to the simple-yet-challenging puzzle games of those older eras.

Code Vein

And now, for something completely different: An extremely anime-styled souls-like. I remember hearing about this game years and years ago, and thinking that it looked kinda… bad. But, in the meantime they really brought it all together into something fun, if not very innovative.

Code Vein is exactly the sort of thing I look for in a souls-like: it takes the basic formula and adds some new mechanics to it, and has an identity of its own. Instead of a medieval fantasy world, it’s a post-apocalyptic modern city crawling with vampires and zombies. It takes inspiration from stylish, gothic anime of the past couple decades: Code Geass, Blood+, Tokyo Ghoul, etc. The character creator is extremely detailed, but mostly when it comes to clothes and accessories.

The gameplay is… fine. It’s balanced around always having an AI companion, so they can throw bigger groups of enemies at you. It doesn’t require the same sort of intense caution of the Souls series, but that makes it more of a fun, casual experience. At least until you’re fighting a boss, then it suddenly requires you to really be on your game with dodging. If I have one complaint, it’s that the difficulty is incredibly bumpy, some areas are a cake walk and others have you struggling through every encounter.

Oh, also the area aping Anor Londo from Dark Souls. Not because it’s derivative, that’s totally fine, but because it’s a maze where everything looks the same and it’s a real pain to get through. Souls games are at their best when areas have good landmarks and make a kind of logical sense. Earlier in the game you pass through a big parking garage, and it’s perfect, just the sort of thing that translates well to this kind of game. But this cathedral-ish area… it just sucks.

It really is quite shameless.

Overally, it’s just a solid souls-like. I enjoyed the crunchy RPG elements, switching classes and balancing your weapons and armor to get good mobility and damage. The ability to just equip cool-looking attack moves as skills you can use, like spells in Souls games, is something I’d really like to see in more games in this sub-genre.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I was kind of skeptical about this game before it came out. Mostly because it was bringing back weapon durability, a mechanic I’ve always hated in these games, but that ended up being a non-issue. Also the school setting made me a bit wary, thinking it was just gonna end up being some Persona-esque thing where you spend tons of time on mundane nonsense while an actual war is going on.

That was all baseless, it turns out. They balance the idea of a military academy with a traditional Fire Emblem structure remarkably well, giving you a lot of freedom around what you want to do when you play the game. You can run around the monastery talking to students, managing your relationships, or you can just do a ton of tactical battles if you want.

The storytelling was remarkably good, though I feel like it was harmed a bit by the weird way it handled multiple routes with different big mysteries. Some routes ended up completely ignoring or just not getting around to some pretty major mysteries. I’m a person who likes long games, but expecting someone to go through all four routes to figure out what’s going on is a bit much.

But more than that, the way it holds back certain reveals hurts the writing in other ways. The actual revelations can’t really have any effect on the characters and their relationships because it all happens at the very end of the game. It keeps the world feeling a bit flat, without any reactions. The mysteries feel extraneous to the plot, in a weird way, when they are so important to certain characters’ identities and the core conflicts that drive the second half of the game.

The gameplay is okay, though a few of the maps are way too big. The portable Fire Emblem games reigned in the map sizes from the old NES and SNES ones, which was a great thing. But now we’re back to moving a whole army one unit at a time for multiple turns just to get to the next group of enemies. The class system was fun to engage with, balancing learning different skills to open up new opportunities, but the gender-limited classes were a real disappointment. Why can’t men ride pegasi? Why can’t women punch good? It’s bizarre, and honestly felt like it had some stuff left over from early drafts, like the pointless dark mage classes.

This has been a lot of complaining about a game I played for close to a hundred hours. Why is this game even on my list? Because the characters are fucking fantastic, and on a basic level the tactical battles are a lot of fun. It offers a paternalistic form of power fantasy, fostering and guiding your children-warriors and then seeing them destroy your enemies. It is just incredibly satisfying to play. And for all that the mysteries end up a bit frustrating, they are intriguing, and do a good job of motivating you to get through a very lengthy game.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Ah, love a good IGAvania.

This was a year where I really reached for comfort food games a lot, and this is maybe the king of that category. It’s just an old style of game that doesn’t get made anymore, done extremely well by the guy who used to make ’em all the time. Nothing super different or innovative, just the same old thing with a couple new tweaks.

It’s an easy game, but that’s entirely by design. It’s about running around this castle killin’ monsters, collecting new abilities, just exploring and poking around the corners. It’s a game that is, ultimately, designed to be comfortable. And in a time of such strife in the world around us, what could be better?

Disco Elysium

There’s already been a lot written about this game, tons of praise heaped on its writing and its interesting, hauntological world that is so similar to our own, and yet so different. Frankly, I’m really glad I got turned into this before it even came out, if I heard all that overblown praise I’d never have ended up actually sitting down and playing it.

Here’s what I’ll say: This game is a look at an ugly world, and it gives you a lot to think about, but it actually doesn’t take itself too seriously. There are a ton of extremely funny moments, a lot of straight-up goofy-ass jokes. This is not medicine that you have to suffer through, just take it as it comes and it’s a good time. This is what allows its writing to really land, it’s not lecturing you from on high, it’s engaging on a lower, more personable level.

It’s also not some super serious text that you have to pore over and consider extremely closely at every moment. It’s a game, you can save scum and try to exploit mechanics and look up answers to mysteries. Much like Souls games, people come up with all sorts of weird rules about the “proper” way to play games like this, but in the end your experience is up to you.

One final note: the game does start off with a kind of off-putting ironic tone. Some people try to downplay this, but it’s there. I can only say this: if you give this game a chance, you’ll be rewarded. It is worth getting through a few sarcastic jabs to get to the good stuff later on. It’s not some perfect audio-visual experience that will entrance you from the opening moments to the credits, it’s just a video game.

Dragon Quest XI S

I first played Dragon Quest XI last year on PC, and I enjoyed it a lot! But I didn’t actually finish that version, not really. I put a lot of time into, but ultimately burned out on the grind towards the very end.

The form that games come in is very important to how they are experienced. Dragon Quest games work best as portable games, I truly believe. It also helps that this version on the switch added the ability to speed up regular battles, so you don’t have to sit through some long attack animations over and over. The more important aspect, though, is simply the ability to pick it up and put it down more easily.

Sitting down at my PC, plugging in my controller, and pulling up a game is a subtly labor-intensive thing. It means I’m devoting a lot of attention to a game, and it has to do something to earn that on a moment-to-moment basis. The ability to just push a single button on the switch and get back into means that I’m willing to forgive a lot more down time.

Anyway, the game itself: this is not just a very good Dragon Quest game, it is the ultimate Dragon Quest game. It truly shows the value in iteration over pure innovation, taking all sorts of different mechanics and ideas from past games in the series and bringing them all together in one big package. But it doesn’t feel overstuffed, it’s just doing the same thing these games have always done, just really, really well.

Dragon Quest XI successfully pays tribute to the older games in the series while also telling a new story with entertaining twists and turns, and fun and interesting characters. It’s beautiful, everything runs smoothly, the writing is charming and light. It’s not on the same level as Disco Elysium, but it’s not aiming for that sort of thing. It’s a fairy tale, a fable, a reflection of the world in a different sense.

A lot of game critics missed this game because it’s long. And that is absolutely fair, it’s hard to fit a 100-hour game into a review schedule in this day and age. But it’s an absolute gem, a truly wonderful experience from beginning to end. I’d recommend it to anyone who just wants a game to relax with at the end of the day.

Monolith: Relics of the Past

Like some sort of Christmas miracle, there was an expansion pack released for one of my favorite roguelikes on Christmas day, just last week.

Monolith is the best twin-stick shooter roguelike, I will make no bones about it. Forget your Gungeons and your Bindings of Isaac, this is a classic NES-styled game with an absolutely pitch-perfect aesthetic and sense of humor. It serves both the twin-stick shooting and the roguelike parts of its genre perfectly, giving you a strong basic weapon to rely on, and also a guarantee of something more interesting but random in every run.

Man, there are games that I enjoy more, but I really, truly feel that this is one of the best-crafted games of the past few years. And this expansion only made it better: fixing up the UI and tooltips to make things more clear, rebalancing the weapons so that they are all useful, adding more variety to runs.

I’m not the best at Monolith, it took me quite a while to get a full win, but that doesn’t make it any less fun to play. In my youth, I was really quite good at bullet-hell games, but nowadays those reflexes aren’t there. It’s a game designed for people who can dodge endless bullet curtains, and also, now more than ever, for those who struggle with it.

It’s truly inspiring to see something that takes from the past and the present and fuses it together into something so wonderful. There are other games that really capture the NES aesthetic and sensibility, like Odallus or The Messenger, but this one really gets the spirit of that whole era of games. It is at once light and airy, and also punishingly difficult. It offers tricks and outs, but also remains utterly mysterious and intimidating.

And that’s it. There are more games I enjoyed this year, like the remake of Link’s Awakening, but these are the big ones that stick out in my mind.

There are a lot of big narrative-heavy games I never got around to finishing, or even starting. It just doesn’t really fit with how I play games these days, listening to podcasts and aiming to relax, not engage with something on a deep level.

That’s okay, though. I’ll get around to ’em in the fullness of time.

Games of the Year 2019 2019 was a good year for games. Lots of interesting new ideas in the space, and some refinements of old ones.

[thearkhound]

CGWorld: Metal Gear Survive interview

The following is a translation of an interview with Konami developers Mineshi Kimura and Noriaki Yamamoto that was published by the Japanese website CG World Entry on February 21, 2018. While this article mainly serves as a promotional piece for Metal Gear Survive, it actually covers quite bit of Metal Gear Solid V too and even briefly touches upon on Mr. Yamamoto’s work as a pixel artist for the Castlevania games released on the Nintendo DS. This was actually the fourth in a series of articles published by CG World aimed at CGI artists hoping to join the video game industry, with previous entries focusing other games and companies such as Dark Souls III by FromSoftware and Monster Hunter World by Capcom. I might translate those too in the future.

The original Japanese article can be read at the following page:

https://entry.cgworld.jp/column/post/201802-c-konami.html

Profiles

Mineshi Kimura - Project Manager. Joined Konami in 1997 after graduating in graphic designs from the Tama University. He has been involved in the mecha and graphic production of the Metal Gear franchise from the original Metal Gear Solid (1998) up to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015). He served as project manager in Metal Gear Survive (2018).

Noriaki Yamamoto - Graduated from the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the Tokyo University of Science in 1997. Joined the Konami School in 1999. He was involved with the Castlevania series, creating pixel art for characters, weapons and icons, up until Castlevania: Order of Ecclessia (2008). He was involved in the modelling and designing of weapons and mecha in titles such as Neo Contra (2004), Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (2014), Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015) and Metal Gear Survive (2018).

Konami Digital Entertainment - The digital entertainment subsidiary of Konami Holdings (itself, originally established in 1973 as Konami Industry) which branched off in 2006. They are involved in the planning, production, manufacturing and sales of console games, mobile games and card games. Currently headquartered in Minato, Tokyo.

Metal Gear Survive - The latest installment of the Metal Gear series, released on February 21, 2018. A spinoff of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015) that reconstructs it as a survival game while retaining its high sense of action. We’ll be covering the designs and modelling of the mechas and weapons that appear in the game during the latter half of this article.

Determining the Designs and Coloring of a Character

First of all, can you please tell us about your career up to this point and your current employment

Kimura: I’ve learned graphic design from the Tama Art University and then I’ve joined Konami in 1997. Since then I’ve been involved with the making of the mechs and scenery for the Metal Gear series. From Metal Gear Survive and onward I’ve been mostly in charge of project management, leaving the creative process to other people, starting with Yamamoto. My job is to support everyone else on their work.

Yamamoto: After studying mechanical engineering at the Tokyo University of Science, I studied 3D CGI and game development at the Konami School, joining the company in 1999. I was in charge of drawing pixel art for the characters, weapons and icons in the Castlevania series until 2008 and I was also in charge of designing and modelling the mecha in Neo Contra, which was released in 2004. I’ve been in charged of modelling and designing the weapons and mecha of the Metal Gear series after being assigned to the Metal Gear Solid V project. There are also many setups that I use myself. The tools that I use include Maya, SoftImage, ZBrush, Substance Painter and Photoshop.

Kimura: Since Yamamoto’s specialty is mecha, I think the content of what we will be talking will fall out of the scope of this article series. Nevertheless, Yamamoto was in charge of the modelling of Metal Gear Sahelanthropus, the leading mecha of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. He started with the idea of wanting to transform it. Therefore, we have many stories that could be helpful to those who want to create a robot.

We’ll look forward to it. It’s pretty unusual for an artist to had majored in mechanical engineering, but it seems to be advantageous when it comes to designing mechas. But before you tell us about Sahelanthropus, can you talk about your involvement with the Castlevania series? We would like to cover your work, from the past to the present, in chronological order.

Yamamoto: I did the pixel art for characters, weapons and icons featured in Dawn of Sorrow (2005), Portrait of Ruin (2006) and Order of Ecclesia (2008). In this case, we would designed the characters in pixel art first and then we would ask the illustrators to draw detailed designs and artwork for the characters.

You mean the pixel art was done before the official art?

Yamamoto: That’s right. Since these are video game characters, we prioritize their visibility while moving on-screen when it comes to deciding their designs and color schemes. We actually implemented the pixel art in the actual game, refining it to perfection while checking out its visibility while moving.

Pixel art for various Castlevania protagonists. From left to right: Soma Cruz from Dawn of Sorrow, Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin from Portrait of Ruin, and Shanoa from Order of Ecclesia. Each character has a design and a color scheme that helped emphasize its visibility on-screen. In the case of Soma for example, white was chosen due to how it’s easy to view on the dark LCD screen used by the portable game machines at the time. Jonathan and Charlotte appear and fight on-screen as a pair, so they were color-coded to make them distinguishable.

Official art of the same characters from the 2010 gameCastlevania: Harmony of Despair. The official art was based on the existing pixel art.

Designing Mecha Like It’s A Toy

Can you tell us the circumstances that led you to propose a transformation gimmick to Sahelanthropus?

Yamamoto: I was assigned to the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (2013) project during the middle of its development. Because of that I wasn’t assigned on any of the large mechas, but I was devising mechanisms for even the smallest things with the aim of high quality. After that I was assigned to the Metal Gear Solid V project and was put in charge of modelling the Sahelanthropus, and I think that’s when the opporunity presented itself.

So the evaluation of your previous work had a great impact on your next one.

Yamamoto: Not only that, but it also helped in clarifying what I like to work on everyday. If you keep going on and on, you will eventually find work that you will want to do. I think everyone likes to leave the most important work to someone who likes it and knows it well.

Kimura: Yamamoto’s specialty is plastic models. He’s always building one. Moreover, since he majored in mechanical engineering in college, his love for mecha and engineering oozes in his work.

Yamamoto: I’ve been building models since childhood and I like transforming mecha, so I often thought about their gimmicks. When I started drawing in 3D CGI, I started making such gimmicks myself and began appreciating mecha even more. I was pretty glad when they put me in charge of Sahelanthropus. Because it was the most prominent mecha, I did my best without holding back.

Design illustration of the Sahelanthropus drawn for Metal Gear Solid V.

The 3DCGI model of the Sahelanthropus. Initially it only had the upright bipedal form on the left, but the ability to transform into the Rex-like form on the right was added thanks to Yamamoto’s proposal.

Yamamoto: Ever since I first saw the design of Sahelanthropus, I wanted it to transform into a shape similar to Metal Gear Rex (the mecha from the original Metal Gear Solid). I have a personal passion for Rex and I’m sure many fans of the series feel the same way. While Sahelanthropus was almost unchanged from its original design, we thought of adding a gimmick that allowed it to transform into Rex forum and experimented with a rough a 3D model. The transformation gimmick was well-received, so we were able to adopt it without any issue.

That specifcation change must have had a significant effect on the game.

Yamamoto: We were able to get such proposal accepted since we were involved with the Metal Gear Solid V project from the very beginning. When it gets to the stage of having to come up with the details, we designed it under the assumption that it will be turned into a toy such as a figure or a plastic model, so we make sure that the individual parts will operate without interfering with each other. As a result, the transformation can now occur within the game without the individual 3DCG parts having to overlap with each other. My experience with plastic models helped me in this regard. Because the gimmick with knee is quite complex, I thought it would’ve been impossible to reproduce without metal parts, so I was surprised when the official toy ended up using actual metal parts.

Kimura: I think it’s a great benefit to have the intuition of knowing how to adapt it into a toy. Moreover, I think it’s wonderful that we could add our own original ideas such as wanting a transformation gimmick and not just do what we’re told to do.

The transformation process of Sahelanthropus. “I thought a transformation might be possible if you can somehow manage with the dexterity of its upright form, but I what I actually struggled with was the transformation of its feet.” says Yamamoto. “The actual Metal Gear Rex has so-called ‘reverse joints’ for its feet and I was asked to reproduce in Sahelanthropus’ second form. But if we reproduce it too closely, we cannot used the same rig as its standard form, so we solved this issue by making the knees double-jointed.” Kimura added “Using the same rig consistently will make it easier for the animator to work with. When making a character during game development in this matter, it is necessary to consider points such as whether the thing will collapse if another rig is added or if there will be any issue if more animation is added.”

Sahelanthropus, as it appears in the game.

Making Things Without The Knowledge

Can you tell us about other things that Mr. Yamamoto was assigned to while working on Metal Gear Solid V?

Kimura: From Metal Gear Solid V and onward, we’ve been designing all the mechas that appear in the game. Yamamoto in particular was in charge of designinf the tanks and jets, as well as modelling the Walker Gears. Although the Walker Gears are an original design, we aimed for a sense of a realism that wouldn’t make them stand out too much from real weapons, so we came up with a design that matches the historical background of the 1970′s and 1980′s by researching weapons used by actual military during that period. We followed that same process when designing the wardrobe and props used by characters. If someone without the knowledge ended up coming up with the designs, they might look cool at a glance, but they’ll lack sense of realism, so it’s not a job you could just give to anyone.

Yamamoto: Since weapons are industrial product, each part has its significance and its purpose. It’s essential for the manufacturing to have good productivity. You design while thinking whether this part will be designed by pressing, welding or minting. Good maintainability, such as whether they can be easily removed with bolts, is also important.

It seems that the setting verification and investigation during the prior stage takes a lot more work than the actual designing and modelling.

Yamamoto: The work itself is not all that time consuming. Given that we model each part one by one, research how the paint scrapes off and how it gets dirtied, and then try to reproduce that, that’s what actually takes our time. (laughs)

How long does it take to build just one mecha?

Yamamoto: It depends on the model. Some will take around two weeks, while others will take more than a month. If there are elements that affect the gameplay, then further validation and adjustments might be required. For example, if someone order us to have a vehicle that shoots long-range missiles, then a 3D model will be implemented in-game, actually move it, verify it, and make any necessary adjustments.’’

Many of the vehicles shown here were designed by Mr. Yamamoto.

A couple of tanks designed by Mr. Yamamoto.

A fighter jet that Yamamoto was in charge of designing. “One of the methods of designing an aircraft is called the ‘area rule’.” says Mr. Yamamoto. “It states that shortening the cross-sectional area reduces air resistance. Many real-life fighter jets are designed based on this rule. By applying the same rule to the fighter jets we design for the game, our sense of realism is improved.” The jet’s design follows the area rule such as the main wings having a small fuselage in order to enlarge the cross-sectional area or shifting the position of the vertical and horizontal tails. Such attention to detail reinforces the sense of realism in the game.

D-Walker, a Walker Gear used specifically by Snake.

D-Walker, as it appears in the game.

Working With Partner Companies

What kind of work did you do in Metal Gear Survive?

Yamamoto: In addition to designing and modelling the weapons and mecha, several 3D models were also outsourced to partner companies. In past, when we outsourced some models for another project, parts of my instructions were unclear and the resulting 3D model was very different from what I’ve conceived in my mind. Based on that reflection, this time we started by making a rough 3D model, implemented into the game, and verify if it doesn’t feel out of place even while moving. After that, we create a design sketch and sent it to our partner company along with the previously-created 3D model.

Concept drawings of the JET Hammer designed by Yamamoto. “We render the outline only as a rough 3D model and then we draw over it using Photoshop” says Yamamoto. “I was conscious of how mechanism would actually work and the realism in the composition of parts. I think we came up with a unique item thanks to that.”

A CGI model of the JET Hammer developed by an external company based on the prior image.

Kimura: Our work is practically done when creating the design drawing. (bitter smile) I think Yamamoto’s responsibilities were pretty large, since the instructions I gave him were quite detailed. But it was because of that we’ve been able to come up with 3D models with a higher degree of perfection than ever before. Some of them were approved the first time, which was quite surprising. Prior to that, we usually redid the models at least twice.

Yamamoto: I believe our partners were able to concentrate on improving the quality thanks to the fact that they were not lost when it came to the shapes, sizes and structures. It might seem done at that point, but there’s actually a lot more work to be done afterward such as making the vertices of the polygons suitable for the game, creating various textures and adjusting the shaders.

Does the number of polygons change from the rough shape?

Yamamoto: It depends on the game’s specifications. Sometimes the number of polygons remains almost the same, but sometimes the number might increase or reduce greatly.

Concept art of the wormhole transporter constructed by Yamamoto. “I’ve ordered a design from somebody else, but it wouldn’t hold up together completely, so I’ve decided to redid the design myself” says Yamamoto. “The final design matches the game’s specifications, such as attaching an energy unit that shows its working status or having pole-shaped lights that can be seen from a distance.”

CGI model of the wormhole transporter outsourced to a partner company.

Kimura: While implementing a 3D model into the game, Yamamoto can talk to the directors and planners of game to find out whether it’s fun or not for the game, or whether they have a good feeling or not. I think that’s his strength.

Yamamoto: There are many things that must be said such as “I made this kind of gimmick, so this is how I want it to be used in the game”, “I want you to add this kind of sound” or “I made this kind of weapon, so I want it to be used properly.” Just passing data around will not get you everything, so we verify things after we implement it and try to explain it afterward.

The JET Hammer and the Wormhole Transporter, as they appeared in the game.

All Actions Will Change When You’re Aware of The Users

Finally, can you tell us about your future aspirations?

Yamamoto: It might be fun if I could be focus entirely on creating 3D models all the time, I can’t actually say that. In the future, I feel it might be necessary to take on a management role and bearing the burden in allowing the younger employees to nurture. You need good developers and a good team in order to make a good game. With that in mind, I’ve been mentoring rookie modellers lately.

In what order would you teach them things?

Yamamoto: First I would teach them how to use the basic tools and how we do things in our company. We cannot proceed if the basic tools are not suitable enough. There are many other things that must be taught, but the most difficulty thing that newcomers must learn is to understand a game’s specification. When it comes to game development, a modeller’s goal isn’t just to model things, but to create a game. You need to create a 3D model while considering how it will make a game fun and whether it will work without failure. If you can understand the setup, the animation and even the players themselves, everything can be changed such as how to deal with things, how you will schedule things and how you create data.

Mr. Yamamoto (left) and Mr. Kimura.

[alexandergarciahitegd-blog]

First Journal for Web Design Spring 2019

1/18/2019

My History with Web-Design:

The first time I ever considered web design was last semester during the intro to design class where we were told to design one. It was horrible, I had no idea how to even approach it and ended up just throwing pixels at a screen until I technically put in enough work to justify turning the project in. I never even thought about websites before then as I always saw them as inconvenient mediums to whatever content I wanted. This reminded me of when I first started in graphic design and literally couldn’t tell the difference between Futura and Baskerville by just looking at them because of how new this field of design was to me. The panic of the oncoming slaughter that would be known as class 576 pushed me to research as much as I could into the field, especially in how to physically make the websites with code. I focused on code in part because of my experience in Adobe programs. Before I can make an illustration in Illustrator, I need to know the mechanics of the program so that I can work at the speed of thought without being stumped. I saw learning how to code as just the web design version of that, though to a certain point I think I was confusing being able to do whatever I want in the browser with being able to design things that are worth making.

I’m coming into this semester very excited for learning how to design for the web.

The First Project Process:

The assignment was to make a website focused on three things that were our favorites in a category of our choice. I may have misunderstood the prompt a little as I thought we were supposed to make a site to house three article listing three of our favorite things in three different categories, rather than one website acting like the article itself listing the three favorites in only one category that the website is entirely dedicated to.  I started in my sketchbook before touching the computer just to get some ideas out before I jumped into the computer with no direction and find myself a deer in the Adobe RGB headlights.

Making the initial wireframe in Photoshop was not an issue, save for some elements that found themselves on the same layers as each other which made editing later difficult because moving objects in Photoshop is difficult when they’re sharing layers. I wrote the colophon in my notes as analog paragraph styles instead of trying to work with whatever nightmare Photoshop’s version of styles must be like. I eventually started doing the text in Photoshop to save me the trouble of having to replace everything from InDesign everytime I wanted to change anything, as per Michael Jared’s recommendation. 

 The problems I started having in Photoshop was when I started working with photos. Usually, I love using PS for photo editing and photo-comps but using it as a layout software is frustrating as each resizing requires manual rearrangement of everything on the page. Making things more difficult was the problem of multiple objects being on the same layer coming back, as they had different rules for how they need to move I needed to constantly code switch between the free objects and the layered ones.

After there were a few basic sketches done using shapes and a system of values to denote the difference between images, texts, and sections, I started populating the file with content, slowly phasing out the shapes. I’m embarrassed to say that the design decisions I made were solely based on the intuition that I don’t have. I decided on a landing page design of a bleed image with some big text over it because that’s what I see on all the web design Instagrams, which is pretty much the only place that I get around to seeing any web design examples for my still shallow internal visual library. The placement of the text and images in a strict and boring grid was based on instinct and my incompetence with working in Photoshop for this purpose completely stunted my ability to explore any other options.

The minimalism in my designs come from my instinct to remove anything unnecessary out of a fear that the alternative is just a mess of content and design elements that I wouldn’t know how to make work. I’m retreating into minimalism because I’m often at a loss for ideas, inspiration, and confidence. I think this has worked out for me a lot in the past as I understand the way to make low detailed content work is to make sure there’s more attention given to each piece of that content, but at the same time I don’t want it to be something I have to do, but rather something I want to do. There is also the issue that I often find my work to be very boring and derivative. The landing page above just reminds me of YouTube, the website that I’m on the most. During the wireframe portion of this design, I was feeling very confident in it and I loved the way it looked. That is until I realized how simple it was and reflected on how little exploration I really did. I fluctuate drastically between feeling overly arrogant and wondering how I could ever survive in this program, something that I expect a lot of designers could relate to.

The image above is of the splash page for the website.

The image above is the article featuring my favorite music genres. The part of the project I’m still mostly proud of was my work with data-bending. I love the process of designing procedural rules for how art should be created rather than creating the final product itself. I put images into Audition and edited them using soundwaves similar to the genres I was showcasing as my favorite to demonstrate how they look in the context of the image I used here with basic shapes and colors. What I wanted was to mix specific songs with the image to produce a more specific result. When I figured out how to do that the final product did not look very good because of hardware compromises I had to make. When I tried to use the image at the highest quality it was 1 hour and 45 minutes long, which meant the song had to be just short of that in length to be mixed properly. I still don’t know if this would work in producing something aesthetically pleasing, you never do until you see the result, but I would like to have experimented with that if my computer had enough RAM for the operation. It’s normal for only 1 in 10 images mixed with sound to look any good at all in my experience, which means experimenting many times in a short time frame is critical to using the medium effectively. 

On Code:

I’ve been reflecting on my resistance to learning a bunch of new programs for future projects. I think a part of it is that I struggle to learn new programs through experimentation, but rather extensive tutorials that walk me through the sensory overload of icons, options, and settings. Before the semester I put so much time into making code the thing that I learned that I was a little disheartened to learn I would have to do the same for a bunch of other programs, but I think it will be fine. When I decided to learn code I promised myself I would never limit my design to what I could do with code, but rather learn how to do it later, and as long as I approach these programs with the same philosophy, then while it might be frustrating and time-consuming to learn how to do what I want, it should be more than doable since they are designed for web design, unlike Photoshop. Apparently, engineers think Photoshop is designed for this kind of work, they’re wrong and that’s why I’m not an engineer, that and I’m bad at math.

One of the things I did in preparation for this class was learn how to code. I started to do this because the idea of using illustrator and XD to make images of the idea of a website rather than actually making the website frustrated me and sounded like it was adding extra unnecessary steps. I was approaching code the same way that I approached any adobe program, it was just something I learned the mechanics of so that I didn’t have to learn while I designed or limit my designs to what I knew how to code. This is the same as in illustrator or Photoshop where I need to sketch out a design and hope that it’s possible to learn how to do in the program. The key with code, that I didn’t realize before I started learning it, is that there are almost no limitations or hoops to jump through. If I want to do something with the website, I just type it and it happens, and if that something is complicated then instead of spending an hour on google looking for a setting that lets me do in like is Illustrator, I just break it down into smaller steps and do it. It makes me feel like I’m no longer being limited by the technology when I code because it’s so clear what I can and can’t do.

It’s not that I think my first project would have been leaps and bounds better without Photoshop, I don’t mean to blame Photoshop for my shortcomings with the design, but there were some things that I simply couldn’t do because I couldn’t figure out how the makers of Photoshop wanted me to do it, such as changing the colors of shapes, and Google was no help on this issue. The other reason that coding has felt natural to me is how intuitive it is to start with nothing and build out. In the Creative Cloud, I am given every tool to use right when I open the program, and it’s information overload. I often have nowhere to start and in worst cases, I get genuinely claustrophobic because I don’t know what I’m looking at until I spend at least 10 or so hours being walked through the interface by tutorials. Coding is the exact opposite workflow. Instead of starting with everything and adding rules, slowly making everything more organized and follow those rules and hoping you don’t miss anything, coding starts organized and with every rule and restriction you could ever have because of the defaults, and I work at my own pace to slowly usurp those defaults and write my own rules for how the website should be. It forces me to set the foundations for the design and work out, rather than forcing every idea I have into one document like I tended to get myself in trouble doing in the past. It also forces me to keep the design structured. When it’s in code I feel like there’s a backbone to the site, and I’m building the body on top of it, as opposed to InDesign which feels like I’m just throwing pixels at a screen blindly and hoping that it works. My brain just responds better to the amount of control you get with coding things, which is not something I expected when I first started learning it.

The disadvantage of code is a significant one. The organization and the foundational nature of it does not lend itself well to exploration. If I want to change something fundamental about the design, then I would have to do a significant amount of reworking, whereas with Photoshop I was able to change the core design ad hoc until I liked it. I had very little issue doing my initial sketch, or wireframe, in Photoshop, and I think it’s necessary to start with sketching in a notebook and then moving to a sketching application. So, in an Ideal world I would do the sketching and wire-framing in my sketchbook and Illustrator, and then make the final version in code where I’m not limited to what Illustrator is okay with me doing. I am hoping that Adobe XD will provide the best of both worlds. Where I can change things on the fly without cutting and pasting a ton of text and hoping I didn’t make a mistake when doing so, which is what Illustrator provides and being functionally structured enough that I don’t get overwhelmed, which is the benefit of code. I intend to try coding my websites after making them in these prototyping programs to polish my skills in code and to boost my self-confidence, but I will not make it a priority until it’s time to make fully functional websites, at which point I’ll get Susan to teach me GitHub.

Wrap-Up:

As I said before, I fluctuate between being overly confident and feeling like there’s no way for me to survive in this program. When I was coming into this class I was in the overconfident stage, and after critique where I saw everyone else's work, I’m shifting into the other stage. Based on the work that I’m doing in this class and in Typography 2, I’m starting to feel concerned that I haven’t actually improved in the past 8 months or so, but instead just learned a couple of rules to make something look good despite not having a great concept behind it. Whenever I do something that I’m very proud of It’s usually an accident that I run with, which is an observation I’m not totally uncomfortable with. I know that I’ve improved at least some despite my doubts, and I’m proud of my ability to see the beauty in mistakes when I’m working that often leads to the final works that I end up being the proudest of.

 I had a lot of plans of doing a ton of self-directed projects this semester considering I have plenty of time for it, but after a couple weeks I’m deciding to cut those expectations of myself down in favor of focusing much more heavily on my classes and developing specific side skills that I’ve wanted for a long time, such as the ability to code and draw. I’m also making it my goal to become more proactive on social media and build a designer presence there to the best of my ability. With all that and finally getting the new computer I’ve wanted for so long this weekend, I think it’s been an acceptable start to this semester.

[hercreativeprocess]

Her Creative Process: Kristina Bartosova

Kristina Bartosova is a Slovakian graphic designer and art director based in Graz, Austria. Coming from a background of classic graphic design, her work spans from branding and editorial design to art direction and styling. Through taking the inherent personality and condition of a project into consideration, she creates powerful aesthetics that form a world of their own.

How did you end up in your chosen career?

Coming from a very artistic family, I have always drawn and painted a lot. I grew up during the aftermath of socialism in a ghetto-like part of the city, a time with no brands whatsoever. Only when someone had family in Western Germany or so, they would have fancy stuff, but otherwise, everything else was very standardized and basic. Think lots of dark blue and brown corduroy - if something was pink, it was usually not from here.

So I was always drawn to brands because it was out of reach. Coming across an actual brand that was known in the rest of the world was super-rare. This whole other world we weren’t supposed to see. It was like collector’s items. After the Velvet Revolution it slowly began that you could buy more Western things and I collected them. I kept everything  – wrappers from the classic blue and white Milky Way bars, labels from the transparent pink Reach Junior mouthwash or L’Oreal crèmes - you name it, I had it.

I started illustrating on a computer really early, when I was 9 or so. My parents wouldn’t let me have any computer games and so I spent a lot of time playing the Lion King on Nintendo at my friend’s house, trying to memorize all the frames I liked. At home I would open Paintbrush and recreate what I saw pixel by pixel 'till it looked like the real deal. I was really good at it because the Lion King was important of course.

Later, when I started skateboarding and snowboarding I would work on my own designs for the boards. I had to be prepared in case I ever became a pro hahaha. I had this huge notebook where I would draw alternative logos with colored pencil and ruler. I had no idea that there were more fonts than those that came pre-installed on my parents’ Windows 95 computer, so I came up with my own and some of the designs were actually pretty good!

From that point it wasn’t a long way 'till I figured that I could turn it into a profession. I went to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, which shaped me a lot, as they put a lot of emphasis on conceptual strength and I learned a lot about graphic design in the context of visual arts.

When do you feel most creative? Be it a time of day, particular season, or after a really great taco.

There’s a lot of individual situations, thankfully. Usually the ideas come when I’m laying on the couch or shortly before falling asleep. It’s that feeling of not needing to think about anything that opens up my brain to possibility and then I gotta get up and write it all down.

Where is your favorite place to create, and why?

As normal as it may sound: my office or my apartment. I have everything I need there – all the books, magazines, pens, markers and paper. Which one it ends up being depends on the thing I’m doing. If it’s something analog or if I’m just starting to work on a branding, I prefer to stay at home alone because I can move around and do what I feel like without distracting anyone. In that phase I might turn the apartment into a mess of thousands of papers and the inside of a toolbox.

Anything apart from the initial stages of design work, there’s no place like my office desk. I don’t put on a suit and tie or punch a timecard (but I do have power shoes!) but it really helps to have a place where you’re there to handle the business.

Typically, what does your creative process look like?

Like going with my gut as much as possible. As I said earlier, the beginning of a project is often messy. I almost never make ‘just the logo’ so when doing a branding I like to plan as much as possible beforehand.  That means I always think about how it works in different applications, how it feels, what the photography could look like, what kind of interior would best represent the brand, etc. To get to all this, moodboarding is a major key.

Then I always sketch, at least a little. If I just jump right into Illustrator, nothing good comes out and the result will be far too stiff. That’s why I like to figure out a direction early on and then experiment and build a design. To bring it all together, I move to my computer and either scan the sketches or start looking for a typeface that fits the image in my head. Once a logo or the core element is finished, the process is much easier to control and straight-forward by just realizing the vision I created on the various applications. It just has to fit with the idea the client and I have set for the brand.

Who and what are you inspired by?

So, so many things! I am very easily amused and have pretty low standards for ‘fun’ and ‘exciting’ so it’s sometimes the most random things that inspire me. It’s not like I never get bored, I probably do, but it’s not so easy haha. I can listen to the same album a hundred times and still enjoy it. Travelling in general and talking to other people and just listening to how they talk about different subjects passionately is always great for a change of perspective.

I also love to go back to Bratislava, my hometown to see all the small changes in time. Regarding design itself, I consciously try not to look at design blogs very often, (of course I check them from time to time) but I love Pinterest and go through other fields like art, interior, fashion, books, design or photography and look for connections. Nothing exists in a bubble and it’s fun to observe how trends that start in fashion influence graphic or industrial design and vice versa. I love to watch how different artists work with new tendencies and what references they use.

Right now, I am crazy about Amelie Pichard, a French fashion designer who makes these fun, almost trashy shoes and bags. I love the references she incorporates and everything about the concept and styling of her campaigns. You have to check her out!

How do you get past creative block?

I have no magical recipe for this, as someone who reads this might hope. I just get through it. I sit down, put in the hours until it’s there. Otherwise I’d have a block in every project, it’s just about sitting down and getting to it. To me the mythical creative block is just that, a myth. Of course I also get stuck initially but when I try and play around, it comes to the point eventually where it is fun, and then I continue from there.

How do you deal with perfectionism, self-doubt, and comparison?

This is not a humblebrag: I am a perfectionist, through and through. It is a double-edge sword and a trait that often gets in the way when you actually want to get shit done. I deal with that on an everyday basis. On one hand it’s good because you can rely on yourself with obsessing over smallest details, and that type of attention will positively show in the end product. On the other hand if things don’t go as I imagine, I get furious. That’s often the case with print production or set design.

Sometimes things turn out a bit differently, even when you’re as hands-on as possible. There is no way one can control EVERY aspect. If the time or resources are limited, you just have to roll with it and accept things the way they are. Then I try to focus on the fact that the work is finished, instead of on the flaws – that helps. You can always learn something for the next time and it is good to move forward.

I used to struggle a lot with comparison and self-doubt before, because I was brought up in a very competitive environment. But I made peace with that because that’s what shaped me into who I am today. I still try to be the best, I don’t think you can really unlearn it if it’s rooted that deeply, but now I get equally as happy from the success of other people who I like and whose work I admire.

Do you have any tips for someone who wants to do what you do (and be really good at it)?

If it’s what your gut tells you to do, go for it! It is a lot of work and the results will not show overnight but if it’s fun to you, it’ll work for others as well. The same is true for every other profession actually. It took me years to get to this point and it’s still not like I sit with my legs on the table and eat cake like ‘Congration, you done it’. I still think I have long way to go but I love what I do and that’s crucial.

What are you working on now, and what’s coming up next?

I’m working on several projects with my boyfriend right now, Thomas Pokorn, who takes care of the concept and copywriting part when we develop a brand identity. We art directed and designed two lookbooks for their upcoming two collections of a fashion brand, alongside their branding. Being on the set was a lot of fun, especially with Lipp Zahnschirm, with whom I also photographed my portfolio. We are currently working together for a local bakery too, and next month I am beginning work on a book about industrial architecture and a second edition of a museum magazine.

Thank you for having me!

CONNECT WITH KRISTINA:

Website | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

[gnicholsonwork-blog]

Emotional Design In Games

Recently I have played four different games that are centered around emotional design and evoking a feeling from the player. These games are:

Love

Machinarium

Allegory

Loneliness

I’ll use this post to discuss my thoughts and opinions on the games and whether they succeeded in emotionally involving me in them.

Love

I’ll start off with ‘Love’ the first game I played out of the four. My first play through the game I accidentally completely missed all of the emotional connection and story of the game. This was because the menu prompts you with three options: ‘What is love?’, ‘Play’ and ‘Credits’. Wanting to jump straight in I chose ‘Play’ as I presumed that the ‘What is love?’ tab would just be an explanation behind the crew and their intent with the game which I think is better to experience first hand. It was however, the tutorial and narrative builder, explaining the meaning behind the game and adding story to the strange blocks you stay close to. It was fair to say playing the game blind to this, I was confused on what to do and couldn’t really understand how this evoked emotion in any way, I especially missed the advice at the end’s point and assumed it was solely talking about the game. Needless to say, I decided something was wrong, restarted, completed the tutorial and everything clicked into place.

I find it strange, not the game, but how applying such a simple narrative pretense to something like a game where you have to stay near to moving objects without touching them can completely change an experience. All of a sudden everything mattered so much more. It was all a painful description of love. Just the explanation that is given stating that if you get too close to someone in love you get hurt as the reason why you can’t touch the moving squares is brilliant to me. It means that every time you lose you are given a solemn reminder of the pain that is caused by such a feeling. Paired with the advice I talked about earlier that has fantastically been crafted  applicable to both the game and love in general. If you read them without context they just seem to be cryptic and vague advice on the game, yet after the tutorial they are given new meaning and appear as extremely important life lessons. 

I thoroughly enjoy Love’s way of emotionally connecting a player, I feel that it really succeeds in its intentions as I struggle to fail the game and read the tips without feeling grounded and a need to change.

Machinarium

Machinarium is another on the list which succeeds in evoking an emotional response from me, I would say the main reason for this would be the absolutely stunning visuals:

In this one frame of the starting level you immediately get a sense of this dark, cruel and twisted world. With a muted colour palate everything feels bleak and dreary, the sight of the robot being in multiple pieces and having to put himself back together in this cold wasteland really drives home a feeling of isolation. Coupled with this art is an animation which somehow feels very creepy and sad, a single drop dripping over and over is done in such a way which makes me feel very uncomfortable. 

When these elements are put together with quite hard puzzles which sometimes feel a little ridiculous in their fairness (A spoiler quickly: My example of this is the second zone where you have to paint your cone blue somehow after already painting it white, the answer lies under more cones which is quite an uncommon thing to do, as generally games like these wont require you to interact with areas that have already given you completed parts of the puzzle)  just to clarify I am not saying the puzzle design is unfair, I enjoyed it as it was relatively unexpected and wasn’t impossible to figure out. By unfair I mean in terms of the world, it seems sneaky and out to get the robot by hiding things in places you wouldn’t think of.

The ‘Unfairness’ of the puzzles as well as the way the second zone ends with the robot slipping and falling really does make this feeling of paranoia stand tall. The world is brought alive to feel cold, unforgiving and brutal in an extremely elegant way. I think this game goes above and beyond in evoking feelings. 

Allegory

Allegory failed to evoke a real emotion from me. I would like to say I have a feeling I may be missing something, the game’s little notes at the bottom certainly feel quite existentialist and jaded. Yet that’s all they are to me, notes. In love, a game I realise I praised for it’s notes above, the game established a narrative for the game and made the notes impactful. In Allegory there is no connection made. Unless I completely missed it or I’m just not smart enough to comprehend the narrative. From my point of view the game and these notes are completely detached, I could be playing Soduku whilst someone reads these to me to the same effect. As I’ve said I have a feeling I’m missing something but I played up to level 15 and still didn’t experience any emotional connection so that is where I’ll leave it. If the emotional development becomes brilliant and suddenly appears after level 15 then that is something I’ll just have to live without and say it’s my fault. However if that was actually true then I’d like to point to the strongest game of the lot I’ve played which is coming up after this. The game managed to completely invest me in 2 minutes. Meaning this has no excuse for such slow engagement.

I enjoyed the game and there were some quite challenging puzzles at some points which was nice, I just don’t feel that putting philosophical quotes over a game with no relevance makes for a very emotionally engaging game.

Loneliness

Play this game, seriously. If you haven’t played it yet you honestly shouldn’t read this. The game is about 2 minutes long and super easy to play. Yet it completely wrapped me up in it emotionally and had me in the palm of it’s hand. I have the highest recommendations for it. Anyway, spoilers from now on so yeah.

I don’t even really know what to say about this game. With just the title of the game and watching the black dots move away you immediately understand exactly what the narrative is. It’s extremely smart and intuitive. However I didn’t even realise how involved I was getting until close to the end, at the beginning I just chased all the blocks away and thought nothing much of it. Then after a big herd had run off out of the corner of my eye I saw one had stayed behind and was hopping. I immediately thought that I had found the hidden block that was the point of the game, I went back to it and it stayed there until running off at the last second. I laughed and thought it was a funny trick of the devs to put in.

More situations like this happened for a little while longer, the game was kind of dragging on now, not in a boredom way but I just wanted to find out how it ended. Eventually the groups started thinning, I didn’t even bother chasing a group of dots as I knew they would run away, in fact. I avoided them. I realised immediately afterwards that I was caught. I actually just avoided some pixels because I didn’t want to disturb them as if I got close they’d just run away. This kind of pissed me off, so I said I would just avoid all of them from now on. And then the groups were gone.

Every now and then I would go past a single dot running around by itself, yet every time I tried to avoid it I thought to myself that this might actually be the one, it looked alone too. I thought I was about to finish the game if I got close. Yet still they ran away. And then the game ended.

I won’t explain what this game did in terms of emotional design, it is so wonderful and subtle that pointing out the frame of mind it put me in wouldn’t really do it justice I suppose. All I can say is it completely manipulated me and controlled my emotions perfectly with such limited time, narrative, mechanics, everything. It is a beautiful insight into someones lifetime. And I suppose I’ll leave it at that. This game seriously is disgustingly interesting in the way it does things. Definitely play it if you still haven’t.

The End

Yeah, those were the games I played that dealt with emotional investment from a player. It’s really interesting to see how different designers combat such an issue, everyone has their own unique way of doing it. Give the games a go if you want, they’re pretty good fun and it’s fun to see how easily we’re all controlled emotionally. Thanks for reading - Geo

[garrettdoeseverything]

In Which Our Hero Gushes About His School De-stresser

I’ve been a big fan of video games, but I’ve never really dived into the indie scene until now. I really wanted to broaden my horizons with these games, and this goal certainly did that. As I’ve become an adult and matured in my approach to media, I’ve noticed that you can actually get a lot out of video games. If you have the right mindset, they can be just as enriching an experience as Literature, Visual Art, or Film. I could probably ramble on and on about these games, but for the sake of time, I’m just going to give you a brief overview of my experiences with each game. So let’s get started!

Since there’s no official ending to this game, I decided to call it “finished” when I reached the end of my second in-game year, when all of my goals had been reached. It’s dangerous that this game has no end, because I could easily play this game indefinitely. Stardew Valley has made it to a lot of Top 10s and favorites lists, and this game earns all of those placements. This game is one of the best examples I’ve seen of a new developer taking a good idea from the past and building it into something better.

Stardew has a heavy Harvest Moon influence, for sure, but also incorporates elements from RPG games, Animal Crossing, and Minecraft. There are so many things I love about this game: the leveling up in different skill areas, the time-management challenge, and the character / play customization, among others.

The most compelling thing for me, however, was restoring the town to its old glory and befriending the NPCs. I fully went into this game expecting the NPCs to be these flat characters, but boy was I wrong. It’s a diverse cast with poignant backstories. They have their own cliques, their own goals, and their own conflicts with other NPCs. Stardew covers a variety of issues we see in our modern-day society, including PTSD, depression, disability, poverty, the environment, and race, just to name a few. There are aspiring artists, conniving corporate managers, and rebellious youth. I found myself making spreadsheets of what gifts everyone liked, just so I could unlock more backstory.

I definitely recommend it to anyone who loves Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing games.

This game is arguably the most beautiful pixel art game you will ever play. I want to hang screenshots of this game on my freaking wall. From wide photogenic vistas to minute details, this game is visually impressive. And the soundtrack only heightens your sense of immersion.

This game also gives a lot of challenges. I'm referring not only to the challenging difficulty, but also to how Hyperlight Drifter challenges typical storytelling. When speaking to NPCs, all you get to decipher what they’re saying is their body language and some pictures to illustrate a narrative. Think of those children’s books with just pictures and no words – conversation in this game is exactly like that. As you interact with the world, you create the narrative. I’ve seen people take issue with this, but I really enjoy it. It was exciting to fill in the gaps yourself and make some theories about what happened to the worlds' various inhabitants.

Gameplay-wise, you mostly fight monsters in fast-paced combat that is the epitome of the phrase “easy to learn but hard to master.” Even in the late game, when you have lots of upgrades, the game demands that you stay on your toes. You pay for every careless move. You also do a lot of exploring and looking for secrets, but I felt like the game was a little too inscrutable with these at first. I eventually figured out that the game left you clues, if only I could have had a hint at it during the early game.

I’ve heard people say that this game is similar to the Zelda games, but the cryptic Sci-Fi setting, the searching for secrets, and the upgrade system make it feel more like a Metroid game to me. I have soooo many things to say about this game, and not enough time to say it. I may even come back to this game at a later time and give you guys my extended thoughts on it.

If games were food, then Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove is like a nostalgic & comforting grilled cheese sandwich. It deserves all the praise it gets. I’m going to break down this review into the different campaigns, since each one is so different:

Continuing with food metaphors, Shovel of Hope (2014) is the vanilla flavor of the campaigns. I don’t mean that in a bad way, either – this game is one heck of a good vanilla. The level design quality of this game is on par with the classics that it tries to evoke. Using only a few simple controls and attacks (with some cool spell upgrades to boot), you progress through more and more intricate platforming challenges. The soundtrack is catchy, the retro-ness is spot on, and the characters are all memorable. It feels like all the NES games packed into one unique super-platformer experience.

Plague of Shadows (2015) builds upon the foundation Shovel of Hope made in ways I did not expect them to go. At first I was worried, because I struggled with Plague Knight’s controls and level design, and I wasn’t really sold on the story. But the more I played, the more this alchemist villain bombed his way into my heart. Speaking of which, Plague Knight’s bomb crafting system is one of the most unique gameplay mechanics I’ve ever seen. You mix and match powders and casings to change the way your bombs explode, which in turn changes how you fight and jump around. Your play style changes from Shovel Knight’s straightforward jump-and-pogo to a more calculated, experimental, methodical approach. Your gameplay eventually begins to match Plague Knight’s character. And that, my friends, is good game design. By the time I came to end of the game, I could finally handle his controls decently, and the story even ended up better than I anticipated. My only complaint is that I wish Plague Knight got a level or two that were totally unique to his campaign. The small changes made to each level were good, but it wasn’t quite enough.

Specter of Torment (2017) is probably the one campaign that I will keep playing and replaying the most. Specter Knight is just so cool. I picked up with his controls the quicker than the two other games, and from then on the game was just one jumping, slashing, sliding joyride. The sense of momentum and the complex platform challenges make you feel like a ninja, zipping this way and that. Best of all, Specter Knight has his own unique levels in the form of flashbacks. Maybe I’m just a sucker for tragic backstories, but to me, the story is far better than the previous two installments. It really moves you by the end. Add in the quirky hubworld of the Tower of Fate, and you have a game that, for me, is the best installment of the series yet.

Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is a quirky game that deliberately breaks a lot of video game conventions. It’s gutsy to develop a game like this. You are the cursed janitor of a spaceport, with hopes of someday leaving to go to a better life someplace else. But you have to break the curse before you can leave. You roam around the spaceport picking up trash, praying to various shrines for luck, and keeping a few valuable things you find for yourself, all the while avoiding the mysterious police that like to bully you and steal your money. You can sell what you find at the various markets, or incinerate it for a cheap buck from your employer.

The game embraces the fact that you are not a hero. All around you are these warriors, wizards, pilots, and other big-shots that are all on their way to some epic quest, while you are the NPC that is there in the background, adhering to a day-by-day schedule and taking in the world around you as you go.

The routine was calming, almost meditative, for me. I don’t think it may be for everyone, especially those who like fast-paced games, but I enjoyed spending an in-game day or two after homework was done to help relax. There’s always something new to see, or something new to pick up.

Furthermore, it’s not afraid to talk about important social issues. It depicts poverty without being condescending or preachy. Every now and then the game works against you in acquiring your goals – prejudice of NPCs, bad luck, and oppressive social systems all begin to weigh on your character. Just when you’re feeling frustrated about a certain thing that happened in the game, you have an “a-ha!” moment where you realize people in poverty might experience exactly the same. It’s simultaneously cute, weird, and poignant. If you approach this game with an open mind, I think you will enjoy it.

Fez was one of those games I had heard about for a long time and never got around to playing, and was one of the reasons why I wanted to do this challenge in the first place. Being a newcomer to the indie scene, Fez for me appears to be a game that has aged pretty well and is still a compelling one to pick up.

Fez is a 2-D platformer, with the twist that the main character, Gomez, has a fez that can shift dimensions and alter how the terrain appears. In reality, his world is 3-D on a cube, but can only be seen in two dimensions at a time. I think I explained that well enough?

Anyway, lots of clever puzzles ensue on this premise. If you ever played Portal, think back to when you first saw how the portal mechanic worked and thought, “Wow, this changes everything.” That’s kind of how I reacted to Fez. The dimension shifting took a bit of getting used to, but once I did, I quite enjoyed myself. I love a good puzzle game, and this one delivered exactly that. I also think how fitting that the game is based on cube-to-flat dimensions, and the game espouses pixel art to match that mechanic. Quite clever. There’s even lots of secrets and background lore to find out, but some were even more enigmatic than Hyper Light Drifter. Really. Setbacks aside, there’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of solving a good riddle, and Fez delivers this quite well.

Congratulations, you made it to the end! Thanks for humoring me as I gushed on and on about these games. If you want to talk more about them, feel free to pick my brain! I only scratched the surface with these games. We haven’t even covered the themes I found in them! But that can be for some other time.

Goal 3 complete!

[courtneykrobertson]

Transmutation - Project 2-

*** SETUP AND CODE WILL BE AVAILABLE IN A SUBSEQUENT POST***

Reflection:

I made a colour palette generator which displays the red, green, and blue colour data of the Processing sketch window, as well as the colours hex code value. The colour displays in the print line of Processing (ideally I wanted the hex value to appear as text in the sketch window itself, but could not figure out how to make that code work). The detection of the colour works with mouse movement in the Processing sketch and with the potentiometer controlling the colour range on the Arduino. The user turns the potentiometer and the colour will alter from one ends of the spectrum to the other of whatever colour has been randomly generated. The colour will be new every time the code is run and is determined by random colour values from 0 -255 in each channel (red, green, and blue). As well, when the user clicks the mouse in the Processing sketch window the RGB LED on the Arduino will light up to match the colour of the window, just as some added flair. The colour range of the LED itself is slightly limited so sometimes the colour won’t match completely, it simply picks the closest value it can.

Inspiration:

·         Jeremy Blum (YouTube)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0pSfyXOXj8

--helped me with the potentiometer and colour variation control.

·         DivasG (Instructables)- http://www.instructables.com/id/Control-RGB-LED-with-arduino-and-Processing/?ALLSTEPS

--helped me with RGB LED pixel colour precision.

·         Other inspiration came from my reoccurring use of colour palette generators online and I wanted to see if I could make my own variation.

Goals:

As stated above, I was really interested to see if I could achieve a colour palette generator of my own that was able to randomly generate appealing palettes each time the program was run. Since the potentiometer allows for a colour range between 0-255 I thought it would be interesting to see all the colour variations a person could physically control when the sketch generated a palette between randomly generated red, green, and blue values. I was intrigued about the precision involved with human interaction and being able to adjust the potentiometer to get the perfect colour within the palette, without having to randomly guess what values to adjust as I finding myself doing with online colour palette generators. As for the “random aspect” I also find that more often than not when I am doing some sort of spur of the moment art project I never know what palette I want to use when the time comes to colour it; so I can now use this project as a sort of inspiration “prompt “to design something with the colours I am provided.

Theme:

I approached the theme of transmutation by changing image into light. The RGB LED detecting the pixel values in an image was one of the first examples I came across when I began to research serial communication. The two examples I saw both used a colour spectrum but I wanted to see how well the LED would do with randomly generated colours and how accurately it could define them. I also knew from the beginning I wanted to use the potentiometer to change some sort of image on the screen simply because I liked the physicality of using it to produce an on-screen change.

Process:

       I went about this project piece by piece, adding new things as I figured out how to work the last. Once I got the basic function working, with the help of other programmer’s projects and tutorials, I began to manipulate variables; for example, the colour variations for the potentiometer because I didn’t want to be stuck with a single, static image of a colour spectrum.  The RGB LED added something else that is visually compelling I think and satisfying to see it change colours upon a mouse click. A major problem I faced was trying to get the print line of the Processing sketch to display as text on screen in the sketch window. I unfortunately could not find a solution despite some great help from others (online and in person). The RGB values and Hex values still appear in the print line of Processing as the cursor moves around the sketch and the colour is adjusted with the potentiometer.  I also wanted to add a push button that would enable the user to re-run the sketch when it was pressed rather than having to re-run Processing with the mouse.

Affordances:

       I honestly didn’t focus on the aesthetic aspect of the actual device itself, rather I was trying to resolve my on-screen text problem in the sketch and admittedly, probably spent too much time worrying about that. I most likely would have added some kind of reflective/refraction casing to the LED itself to create more of a noticeable change when the colour is altered; a glass or mirrored casing ideally.

 Interaction:  

       The user has control over the colour spectrum of a randomly generated colour once the sketch is run; they turn the potentiometer on the Arduino, either way, to adjust the colour which displays in the Processing sketch window. The RGB values and the colour Hex code will appear in Processing’s print line as the mouse is moved over the window and once the mouse is pressed the RGB LED will light up to match the colour selected on screen. I wanted the user to have a sense of control over the colour palette generated while also being provided with a limited range to work with, as a starting point for an art piece or to surpass creators block in some way by providing a palette.

Audience:

       My audience is for artists who often struggle with thinking of or finding a colour palette for their work. I got the idea for the project because I face that issue quite often in my own work. I thought it would be interesting to be provided with a prompt while simultaneously being able to adjust it as precisely as the user wanted.