Over the weekend I had an idea that would be quite time consuming for the group but will pitch it on Tuesday and see what they think. As we have 3 (potentially 4) different types of foxes they all live in slightly different habitats (some the same), therefore I was thinking for our game that in the final stage you chose which ending you get. One set in the Arctic for the arctic fox, one set in a desert for the fennec fox, and one set in the forest for the red fox. Depending on which character you are playing as when you enter the final area is which ending you will receive.
This week out of session I looked at creating mock designs for the main menu and pause menu.
These included a stock background image for the time being In Ori and the blind forest their main menu background is concept of the forest you play in. In our game you are never in 1 setting, you pass through multiple settings with the end goal of returning back to the wild, so for now I decided to go with a stock image of a forest (the default ending area). The background will eventually be a screenshot from the game or a piece of concept art but as the aim of the game is to escape back to the wild that’s why I chose a forest background.
The colour scheme I went for was oranges, yellows and whites, this is because our foxes are these colours. The borders around Play,Options and Exit are a wood style due to matching our in game hud borders also being wood style which was a design choice again based on returning to the wild, which is a forest (by default).
Each of the main menu and options screen have two different versions, these will be pitched to the group to see which idea they like best and I will modify the designs in session based on their feedback.
Main Menu Design 1 – The background can always be made brighter, the text for the title of the game also is just a place holder for the custom font that I would like to use (the same font that is present on our logo). When you hover over one of these buttons the font will change colour to yellow.
Main Menu Design 2
Options Screen Design 1 – In Ori and the blind forest they use the same image as they use in the main menu but just a darker version in order to be able to see the text clearer. I have gone with a similar idea for our options screen (this might eventually be called help and options screen). We decided on the idea last week that as we have concept art for each of our characters it would be nice to show off these somewhere, so came our characters screen which is a little bio of each of the characters with their concept as well. I also liked the idea of having a gallery in our options (will possibly be moved out of this section into its own later on) this is because we have a lot of concept art and because its a really nice idea to take screenshots of the game (just the backgrounds / without the character in) and show off development stages of the game that people can look through to see where we started and where we ended up. As well as having the font change colour for selecting that option, I will also ask for a shape to be created or effect that can be added over the top to the option that is selected.
Options Screen Design 2 –
Pause Menu Design – The background is place holder but it will be just an overlay menu on your current screen meaning the background will be the in game scene. The shape in the top left is also a place holder for what our collectable symbol will be. This is the screen where you can see how many are in the level and how many you have collected.
In session I will finally be creating the widgets for the In Game HUD and testing it to see if changes need to be made.
Chronicles of Kitchie 