Creating a dossier for Our Game

The first thing that I wanted to do for our game was to create a minor dossier for our team. Not only would it contain all the essentials, such as a variety of mood boards and story boards, but it would also contain a large amount of research that had been put into the game. The first thing that I put into the file was the notes that I took. Over the first week or so, me and my team had several discussions on what the game should consist of, what the enemies should look like, what the main mechanics of the game play like, etc.

The notes:

Notes taken for "team meetings" (Me)

Here are the notes in which I have been taking in our team sessions. Here is just rough ideas and feedback I have been getting from the group as a collective and how we can move on. This was a perfect starting point as we all had a etched out a rough idea of what we were doing and how we could achieve it.

The mood boards:

Mood board for spaceships (Me)

The next thing that we as a team went on to do was go and create different mood boards. I was designated with the task of creating one for the player spaceship, where as jay was given the enemy ships. By doing this for both the ships, we had inspiration and reference. This meant that if we ever got stuck for ideas or are struggling to create a certain piece, we could come back and refer to our mood boards.

Mood board for enemy spaceships (Jay)

Research:

I decided that before we started to get down with the work, we needed to have some research, something that we could also refer to. Also by doing this, I could see the key mechanics of what makes a great high score flying game. The 4 games that I ended up looking further depth was Geometry Wars, Crimson Dragon, Asteroids and War Thunder. All had great aspects to them that were much different to that of each other.

Research into successful highscore flying games (Me) 

The Story Boards:

A rough story board (Jay)

Detailed drawings (Jay)

We decided that we were going to do a mood board. This was perfect when it came to telling people what were going to do and what our story/objective was going to be. As you can see, we did two varieties. One being a version done in pencil, but stills tell the general story and concept. The other one that we did was create one that had been touched up. They both contain panels which would tell information to the reader about whats going to be happening in this part of the game. In the Photoshop mood board, it also gives a more realistic take on what it would like, merging with all the colors and sketches.

Pg 1 of detailed story board (Me)

Pg 2 of detailed story board (Me)

Pg 3 of detailed story board (Me)

Concepts:

Detailed concepts  pg 1 (George)

Here are two concepts that were made be a member of our team. He is a fantastic artist and really did manage to nail down the aspects of the ship that we, as a team, were looking for. As a team, we were all thinking that we need to look at a mix between flesh and bone and George has managed to get that on point.

Detailed concepts  pg 1 (George)

Before paint in photoshop (Me)

On the other hand, I was tasked with the player ship,  As I felt that I was not that skilled when it came to painting from free hand, I thought that it would be much better if I made the ship in Maya and then painted it over the top. It was a fairly long winded way of doing it, but looking at the end result, I can honestly say that I am extremely happy with the way it has turned out. It turned out to be a good piece of concept art.

After paint in photoshop (Me)

Starting the designs:

First designs (Jay)

Again, Jay was extremely talented when it came to working in Mudbox or Zbrush, so he set of straight away, composing a basic model of what the enemy ship could look like. Blown away by the results that he got, we, as a team, were all desperate for him to continue it on.

One sheet:

Our one sheet (Ben)

Coming back to the task that we had done earlier in the year, we were told that we needed to create a one sheet. This will tell the producers what are the basic outlines for the game and what the vision was going to be. This included the environment, the ship design and how the score system will work.

Designs for the space station:

Screenshots of designs pg 1 (Ben)

We also had some designs that Ben had been putting together on Maya. In our game, there will be a space-station floating around. This looked extremely cool, but had a high poly count. At this stage, that doesn't matter that much, but what was important is getting some designs done.

Screenshots of designs pg 1 (Ben)

I am happy with the way that the game is going so far and I can only hope that the form and the pace stay to a high standard. This was just a quick skim of what features the journal, but still, I think its safe to say that the project is going good.

The full dossier (Me)