Xutong Chen

Hello, I am Xutong, I am acting as a visual designer in this team.

Week 1-2 Journal

I am the visual art designer on the team. This week our team had ideaed the project and I designed the characters in the game. We decided on the characters as the animals that live in nature. For example the rabbit, fox, Sciuridae, and so on. And for our plant monsters, I designed them into plant-based models. Like a flower monster. I draw the game ideation and storyboard in procreated and our team and I decided that we will use pixel style in the next step of game design. As a 2D base game, use with the pixel style will be more fantasy.

After modification and critique in the lecture, we made a modification to the map of the game after discussion. We decided to use five themes. There are oceans, deserts, forests and swamps. Each theme requires 5 maps, so at the beginning of the game players can randomly get 3 maps out of 5. After the discussion in week 1, I will design the map of the following ocean part. I design four different characters for the original game in the beginning, but after the discussion, we decided that instead of playing with multiple players, we would play with one player, and the players would have three different characters in the game. So I'm going to design one character in the game: Rabbit and three images in different situations.

Week 3-4 Journal

In this week's work, I was responsible for most of the painting, including flow board and storyboard, game character and background painting and character design in procreate. I completed the storyboard based on the game's story background and the flow board based on the game's mechanics. At the same time, I also drew and designed the background of the game. For example, with four different scenes in the game, I designed the background of the ocean and the swamp.

In the character design, after discussion, we unanimously decided to use the image of the rabbit as our main game character. The rabbit character design is also separated by a lot of actions to complete. For example, the rabbit running action takes 5-6 frames to complete. Such a coherent action will be more vivid in the game and the player will feel better about the game experience.

This is one of the backgrounds of the game, and the theme of the background is the swamp. I used some dead trees and mud river to show the background of a swamp theme. The revised theme or other background are still a work in progress.

This part is the design of continuous movements of rabbits, including running, walking, jumping and so on in the game. In the following work, another team member and I will continue to design the rabbit's attack, death, explosion and so on. There's also the monster design in the game.

Week 5-6 Journal

During these two weeks, we have carried out the animation design of the game character's skills. Such as character attack and fire animation. There is also an explosion animation for the character. In this series of designs, because it is a continuous animation, I need a frame-by-frame design. For example, the rabbit's attack is 8 frames, the fire is 7 frames, and the explosion is 5 frames. The effect of such continuous animation in the game is very coherent and vivid. Besides that I also designed decorations and backgrounds separately. In our game, the theme of the first level is the ocean, so I designed the background changes in the morning, middle and evening respectively. Changing the background according to the code of unity can also increase the visual aesthetics of the game. In addition, I also painted for the decorations in the game. For example, the organisms needed in the ocean: kelp, coral. In the next two weeks, I will design another character, as well as the background and decorations of the next level, to improve the aesthetic design of the game.

week 7-8 journal

In the past two weeks, I have successfully designed an ice rabbit image with different movements, and used Procreate to complete the production of the rabbit and the design of the skill animation. The design this time is very different from the rabbit character I designed before. I paid attention to the player's ability to distinguish, so that they can distinguish the two characters more clearly.

In order to make the new rabbit image more recognizable, I created a brand new design, including different shapes and colors. I chose elements of ice and snow, as well as the main colors of blue and white, to increase the coldness and distinctiveness of this character. At the same time, I also added more details and textures to the design, making the character more rich and three-dimensional.

In addition to the changes in appearance, I also paid special attention to the movement design of this rabbit character. I consider that players often need to react and operate quickly in the game, so I designed different skill animations, such as sprinting, jumping, attacking and defending, to enhance the game experience. These animations have been carefully designed to more smoothly represent the different abilities of this character.

In this project, I am constantly experimenting and tweaking to achieve the best results. In the end, I managed to create an ice rabbit figure with unique characteristics and rich movements, which made it easier for players to distinguish it from the previous rabbit characters in the game. This process also gave me a deep understanding of the importance of design and the joy of creation.

week 9-10 journal

During these two weeks, we made a plan and design for the background of the theme. Because the final theme is the desert and the boss battle, the background I designed is desert, with a yellow and orange color as the theme. Because our content is saving the environment, the background design of the desert is presented in a good desert environment. In the last level of the battle with the boss, because it is the last boss battle, I designed the background with an environment with purple and black as the main colors, which can highlight the darkness and destructive capabilities of the boss's forces. It presents a feeling that an environment with bosses cannot be saved, but in the background of the first few levels, what I designed is an environment that is saved and becomes better. Therefore, we have discussed and revised the environment design several times. At the same time, we also conducted a discussion and design on the monster characters in the game.

Background of level 3

Background of level boss

week 11-12 journal

During these two weeks, we discussed and designed the monster characters of the game. Based on the game background we have three themes: Beach, Jungle, Desert. So our design of monster characters is also based on these three themes. For example, in the first level of the desert, I designed a character of a crab and a bird, because the crab fits the theme of a desert. In the second level, I mainly designed a snake and a frog character (of course, the frog can also be used in the first level), and in the third level desert, my idea is a bee, but because the character of the game is being modified , so I mainly designed the monster characters of the first and second levels. Each character has very few frames, because I want to make sure that the boss in the last level will be better designed and have more skills.