Today I researched into possible themes for the art style of the game, whether this be a culture, location or set of artwork, simply something that will inspire the look of the game.
What am I looking for?
- Colourful locations – Locations I know will suit lots of colours being in there – So if the locations are already colourful this would indicate they are suitable to have colour in them.
- Bright colours – I need a theme that is filled with bright colours to ensure that I can gain a range of colours for the health/ healing colour palettes, that are all distinctive and easily recognisable from one and other – Ensure
- players know what colour they need to heal with
- Dynamic shapes and originality – Something that stands out of I could use to make my game distinctive from others.
- Links to stress in some way – With my game idea being based off of stress I need an environment that will compliment this to enhance this emotion.
Starting Thoughts
- Initially I created a quite mind-map in my book thinking about possible environments that would suit my game. Starting off I thought about what places cause players would loose health gradually which is a key mechanic of the game and then onto what environments are stressful.
Scans from Sketchbook 2
- From the mind mapping I found a keen interest in the idea of a cage, as they cause people to feel trapped when in one, and the feeling of trapped is something I discovered created stress when asking people. Therefore I felt it would be a good place to start to my search, as this linked strongly to the concept of my game.
Imagery
Initial Imagery
Searching through Pinterest to gain some visual context for cages, I discovered Moroccan lanterns as related imagery to the cages I had been looking into.
Though they I felt they didn’t necessarily link to stress, their bright bold colours and distinctive shapes intrigued me and I wanted to search more around the culture.
Developed Imagery
Feeling inspired by the Moroccan lanterns due to their vivid colours and unusual shapes, I then decided to find more imagery about the culture to identify if its imagery would fulfilling what I had outlined I was looking for at the start.
Scroll down to the bottom of the Pinterest Board to see the full journey I went on to get to the Moroccan art style.
The imagery of Moroccan culture that I found most definitely fulfilled the criteria I was looking for. It was full of bright, bold colours that could clearly be distinguishable from each other, meaning a range of colours could be selected from the imagery to form a useful colour palette to use in game.
MOROCCAN HEALER
I then started looking into the traditional dress of Morocco to see if it could be used to influence the design of the characters within the game.
I discovered there is a tribe called Berber, as well as Amazigh, which originate in the region.
Imagery
- Bold Colours
- Distinctive angular shapes
- Flamboyant
- Interesting features that could be added to characters – eg the headdress, face accessories or hats.
- Very original and unique – Colours are nothing like I’ve seen before – Help the game to stand out
Stress and Morocco
Yoga
With my research showing Morocco to be perfect in terms of colour and originality, I wanted to discover if it could fill the last criteria needed for an aesthetic theme, by being related to stress.
Admittedly at first I struggled to find anything related to stress within Moroccan culture, however there was a lot on how Morocco is an ideal area to de-stress. With hundreds of holiday companies advertising mediation and yoga retreats to the country, boasting of its calming tranquil atmosphere.
Thoughts
- Though Morocco in’t a stressful location, it still has its connection with the emotion and it would be interesting to flip the de-stressing content with a stressing one and see how this works.
Decision
I have decided to choose a Moroccan theme for my game, due to its bright vibrant culture fitting the colourful nature of Chroma. The vibrantly painted villages and the bold, distinctive traditional dress of the Moroccan Berber tribes, will be useful in gaining a range of distinctive colours from, to form the health and healing colours. Therefore ensuring all colours are different from one another, so can easily be identified during the panicked stages in the game.
With Morocco being a popular country for mediation retreats, where people would go to de-stress, it showed that the location had a link with stress, which is the main theme of my game. Though the areas is known for de-stressing and not stressing people out, it still had that link and I was simply flipping that on its head.
However thinking about it now, a de-stressing environment would suit the background story of the game, with the world being a peaceful place before it was over run with enemies which have caused it to be a dangerous and stressful one. And so having my game world based off of a Moroccan location/ culture I feel would make it plausible that the game world was once a tranquil meditative environment.
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