SUMMARY
Role: Artist
I was the lead artist, so I made most of the sprites and the music
Intention (SMART Goal)
Goal: Make an interesting setting for the game using sprites.
The specific skill needed for making these sprites is the ability to make cool pixel art. It’s measurable if somebody look at these sprites and say “yeah this game has a cool world”. This is also achievable, as while I still have a lot to learn about pixel art, I can create an interesting world. I’m setting this goal now because I think it’s important for the sprites you make to enhance the world of the game, so it’s best if I learn that now. The deadline for this goal is when the game releases, and I think I can make enough sprites by then.
PRE-PRODUCTION – INQUIRY
Leader(s) in the Field / Exemplary Work(s)
Below is gameplay of Jason Perry’s game Jubilee, courtesy of his Twitter
There’s also an Interview with Jason Perry by Concept Art Empire
Jason has made a couple of small indie games by himself and specializes in pixel art. He also has several asset packs for sale and free tutorials on his website, finalbossblues. I think he stands out because, just look at his art, that’s cool. I also think it’s a neat idea to sell your pixel art to small game designers so they can make a game without having to make the art themselves.
Training Source(s)
- 1:15 Start with small canvases
- 3:31 Make every pixel count
- 3:55 Make a silhouette first
- 4:15 Keep objects to 3 colors, each color also has a base, shadow, and highlight.
- 4:40 To make a shadow, decrease value and saturation, while also making color a bit bluer
- 4:55 To make highlights, do the opposite of what you do for the shadow to make a highlight for a regular object, but for shiny objects, you should still decrease saturation
- 5:45 Helpful website for palettes is lospec
- 5:55 For shading, keep in the top right or left corner, and keep it consistent
- 6:10 There are three main types of borders, none, solid color, and the “complex one”
- 6:55 Look at other people’s art for inspiration and learn from them
Project Timeline
- Brainstorm ideas for the game
- Decide which ideas we like and how easy they would be to implement
- Program minimal viable product
- Program additional features
- Design levels using features
- Design sprites
- Program menu
- Design song
- Fix bugs
- Present game
PRODUCTION – ACTION
The (FILM, SOUND, or GAME Creation)
Skills Commentary
I think we did a good job. I particularly like my wizard walking animation so I included the sprite sheet. The song I composed is also really cool.
POST-PRODUCTION – REFLECTION
21st Century Skills
Ways of Thinking (Creativity, Innovation, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving)
I was creative with my sprites by choosing that a platformer where you can redirect projectiles would be best represented as a wizard. I then innovated by thinking about another group’s game, lizards vs wizards. If they have a game about lizards fighting wizards, and our character is a wizard, then he should fight lizards! I also used critical thinking to analyze my sprites and improve them. Lastly, I used problem-solving to look at how my sprites looked in movement by making a short gif of what it would look like and deciding if I liked it.
Ways of Working (Communication & Collaboration)
I would often communicate with my team to see what sprites we needed, what the sprite would look like, and whether or not they liked the finished project. I often collaborated with Leo when he was making the backgrounds.
Tools for Working (Info & Media Literacy)
I used information literacy to figure out the tools my pixel art creator had and decided how to use them to improve my art. I made a lot of cool stuff using the brush tool.
Ways of Living in the World (Life & Career)
During this project, I was developing the skill of getting work done, even outside of the work environment. I made a lot of sprites, and I even worked on a couple of them in the free time I had outside of class. I think that’s a very useful skill to have when we’re surrounded by distractions we could do instead.
Reactions to the Final Version
I asked a lot of online friends to play my game, and I’d like to use their comments. It seems they had a lot of problems redirecting the projectiles, but they liked my work on the art and music. Although one of them said “omg the music scared me” when they first started which was a sentiment shared by one of my teammates on an earlier version of the song.
Nate from class said “I really liked the re-direction mechanic”. While john
Self-Evaluation of Final Version
I think I did a good job, lets look at it compared to the SUCCESs model
- Simple- Both my art and music were pretty simple, easy to understand, but still good
- Unexpected- Well perhaps the lizard making an appearance and the scary bits of my song were unexpected, but overall I don’t think this applies much to art and music
- Concrete- I don’t know how this applies to art, so I’m just going to say my work was solid
- Emotional- Well one of my unused sprites was a very emotional picture of the wizard’s hat next to a blast mark and some blood, but that wasn’t used. Ooh! I did install the emotion of fear with my music
- Stories- I think my art did tell a story, and that was essentially my SMART goal, which I think I knocked out of the park.
What I Learned and Problems I Solved
I learned a lot about making pixel art. It’s always been a hobby I would practice but never really like my works, but getting to work on my art for a project motivates me to make my art better and ask other people what they think of it. It’s changed my perspective on my art since it turned out a lot of people liked my art, which I thought looked terrible. I’ll go away from this not only trying to make my art even better but also looking for advice from professional artists to figure out techniques I can use to improve it.
Grammar and Spelling
Grammarly
Editor
John Zickuhr