Hey, everyone!
I think we've been writing this almost every week, but this week's progress has been decisive for Loowa. Many, many things were tested and changed or adapted in all fronts of the game: art style, level design, game mechanics, gameplay and game controls, etc. Only the narrative has remained the same throughout this process, and everything else has evolved to suit it. We can now proudly say that we have a much more coherent and cohesive game.
In the next few articles, we'll be showing and explaining all these changes and the results of the tests in other areas, but this post is once more dedicated to Loowa's art style.
Last week we revealed a few game mockups, and they've served us well. We've been focused on a jungle theme from the start, but our mockups led us to a more woodsy vibe, and Joana tested quite a few different shapes and silhouettes for a forest-related scenery:
Foliage and rocks
Different types of trees
From a combination of the forest and jungle mockups, we arrived at the next phase of Loowa's art style tests:
This new mockup played a very important part in helping us decide which road we wanted to take and gave us the answers to some questions which were still a bit unclear in our minds:
- Which art style suits Loowa best?
- Does it fit the game's theme and narrative?
- Does it help get the game's message across?
Since a game's artistic design is the first thing people see and notice about a game, it immediately shapes their perception and idea of what the game is, so there's a great pressure to give the right vibe. Moreover, by taking our time defining Loowa's art style, we tried to account for all future problems that might arise in other areas (mainly programming and puzzle implementation) due to the choices made.
Taking all this into account, we've decided to forge yet another path, one that's close to completion. As they say, the third time's the charm, so we're feeling quite confident in this new approach, but since it's not quite fully-fledged yet, we'll reveal more next week. For now, we'll leave you with a sneak peek of a test that may have started this new concept:
Intrigued? All will be revealed soon, stay tuned!
#gamedevelopment #indiedevelopment #indiegame #indie #gameart
