After reading through the brief I know that Rockstar Games want the protagonist to be on the theme of ‘Metamorphosis’, which basically means ‘the process of transformation from an immature form to an adult form in two or more distinct stages’, ‘a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one’. I will have to do research on metamorphosis and how it can be introduced into a gaming concept.
Also, Rockstar Games don’t want to use the same art style, look and gameplay of Grand Theft Auto (GTA). Avoiding the art style will not be difficult, as I don’t plan to go for a realistic look. But it will probably be a problem to have the character dressed casually because I don’t know whether or not the game is going to be in 3D person or open-world. Here are games which use the GTA formula Mafia, Watch Dogs, Red Dead Redemption, Saints Row and many others.
Rockstar Games is looking to attract the young end of the teenage market, that will be kids between 12 and 15 years. Nowadays almost all of the teens in that age have played and are playing games like Call of Duty, which is PEGI 18, but this doesn’t mean that the character can be in the same style, as Rockstar Games won’t approve it. That is going to be a bit challenging because not all kids are interested in ‘kids’ game,
The final look of the character can be 2D, 3D or with any other techniques and materials. That means I can freely experiment with everything even animation.
PEGI
In order to understand the boundaries the age group sets, I will have to research PEGI and games that aren’t using the GTA formula. PEGI is a European gaming system for categorizing the content of computer games. The system is supported by the European Federation of Interactive Software.
Bellow are age groups and information for each one:
PEGI 3
A game with this label should be applicable to all age groups. There is permitted to have violence as long as it is in a comedy way, for example, ‘Tom and Jerry’, ‘Bugs Bunnie’ and other cartoon shows like that. There shouldn’t be vulgar scenes, pictures or sounds.
Shrek 2 is a very good example of a PEGI 3 game. There is no bad language and the violence is against stylized characters only. In the game, you play as Shrek, solving puzzles beating up bad guys.
PEGI 7
All of the above applies to PEGI 7 with the exceptions of some more frightening sounds and scenes.
Minecraft is maybe the best example of a PEGI 7 game. It has mild fear and the violence is towards zombies, even though you can hit other players there no blood or damage that can be seen. In Minecraft, your main purpose is to survive and be creative about it. Fight zombies during the night and build your base during the day or play in creative and do whatever you want.
PEGI 12
This rating is for games that show slightly graphic violence against fantasy/non-human characters and no graphic violence against human characters and also animals, surprisingly games with slight nudity will also fall in this category. As for the language it has to be mild and far from sexual.
This is Overwatch, the game has violence, shooting towards human characters and that is the only reason it is rated PEGI 12. In the game the only gameplay mode available is online. In the game you and your team fight against an enemy team in order to achieve a certain goal. The game also isn’t featuring any blood, when you shoot someone sparks are coming out instead of blood.
PEGI 16
Once the graphic violence, bad language, horror scenes and sexual activity reaches a level where it looks like it resembles real life a lot, it falls into this category. The heavy use of tobacco and other drugs is also acceptable for this rating, as well as criminal activities.
In Titanfall 2 the main focus is violence again, but here the violence is towards mainly other human characters and players. The player is able to kill them, sometimes in a more brutal way so blood and slight gore can be seen.
PEGI 18
A game is rated 18 and over when the graphic violence gets to gore and other specific types of violence, there can be also extreme sexual violence and activities. Gross violence can be very difficult to define, as there are a lot of different types and forms of violence, but in general terms, it is the type of violence that can make a person repulsive.
In mortal combat, the rating PEGI 18 fits perfectly. There are graphic violence, gore and more sexual based scenes. You can violate the body of your opponent in many different forms in this game, some people might not have the stomach for it.
On the back of a game, there can be found a descriptive label that shows why the game was given its rating. Here are all of those labels:
Bad Language
The game contains bad language and swears words.
Discrimination
The game contains discrimination, it might racism or other oppression towards minority groups.
Drugs
The game features drugs and their use.
Fear
The game contains scary and frightening scenes and sounds for young children.
Gambling
Games with this label have gambling in them. They also encourage gambling and shows the player how to play.
Sex
This label shows that the game contains sexual scenes and probably gameplay. Sexual objects/items can also be found in the game.
Violence
The game contains violence footage and gameplay. The main focus of the gameplay might be to fight.
Online Gameplay
This label shows that the game has online features, it can be played online with other players and communicate with them, if the game features it.
Metamorphosis in real life can only be associated with butterflies and some reptiles, like toads and salamanders. It can also be associated with art, different art styles, techniques but we are not looking at it in that way.
This is the whole cycle. When a caterpillar hatches from an egg, it will start searching for food and will eat until it grows and matures enough. After that, it goes into chrysalis starts the whole metamorphosis process. When the necessary time passes a butterfly emerges from the cocoon and it goes to lay eggs and repeat the process.
For the toads and salamanders, the metamorphosis is a bit different.
As you can see the core process is the same- the eggs hatch, grow into an adult and lay eggs. But they are not going into a cocoon during the course. After an approximate amount of time has passed the hatchling grows first back and then front limbs and the tail almost disappears. Here is a video showing the whole process:
But when metamorphosis is introduced to gaming you can view it in many different aspects and varieties. In theory, any kind of physical or mental (e.g psychic powers) change can be called ‘metamorphosis’. Because the character goes through a certain event, maybe he ate something or got injected with something, that changes his/her DNA and they are no longer the same beings that they were before. For example, Superman hasn’t gone through some kind of metamorphosis to gain his powers, he was born like that. But Spider-man didn’t had any powers until he was bitten by a radioactive spider. That means my character has to gain his powers through some kind of metamorphosis or maybe he can already have powers and when he is going through metamorphosis he will evolve them into a next stage.
These images are from the game ‘The Last Of Us’, it’s a 3D person game and there is a zombie apocalypse. The virus that turns people into clickers (the images above), acts as the metamorphosis. It affects only humans if a clicker bites a dog the dog won’t turn into one. But there isn’t a lot of information regarding animals in the game so most of it is just speculations. When a person is bitten by a clicker he/she isn’t turned into one immediately, it takes certain time its different with every person. In the begging, they will be runners then stalkers and then clickers. After he/she turns completely it will seek other living humans to spread the virus further. Keep in mind that the virus is like any other virus it will keep on spreading until defeated or it doesn’t have anything else to consume (the host is dead). Basically, it acts like your normal flu.
There is also this fella, a ‘Bloater’. You can find only a few of them in the game because they are the fourth and final stage of the virus. It takes years for them to evolve this much, just like the toad takes a certain amount of time to grow limbs.
This way of introducing metamorphosis in a game is maybe the most scientifically real one, it meats the requirements. But I can’t use something like that for two reasons-zombies will not be allowed in e PEGI 12 rating game, maybe if they are like ‘Plants vs Zombies’ it will be fine, but it’s not what I am going for. The second reason is that the protagonist can’t be a mindless zombie.
‘Prey’ is another example of metamorphosis in a game. The game is set in the near feature where the protagonist fights alien life forms in a space-station near the moon. These aliens are called ‘Mimics’. In the beginning, the protagonist uses normal means to deal with the aliens- weapons, tools and melee combat, but after certain events in the game, he injects alien DNA in him. That gives him the same powers as the aliens and after time you can spend resources to upgrade those powers. The player has to be beware because the more resources he spends on mimic powers the higher chance there is that the security system in the space-station will think he is an alien. I find this a very creative way (from a developer’s point of view) to make the player really think-What does he want? Does he really need it? Is it worth the risk of further alienation?
Here is the first power that you acquire ‘Mimicking’, parts of start turning into black mist and start to shape the object, that you are going to turn into. After that, the rest of your body disappears into it too. All that happens in the blink of an eye. You can do this with several objects, but nothing too big.
One of the other powers ‘Telepathy’, basically it does what it says, you can move stuff with your head. But of course, there are limitations to that weight, distance from the character, dimensions ( it might not be heave, but big) and how many at once. As you can see the powers you get (if you want to) are quite broad. From mimicking, something that requires your body physique, your biology to change, to telepathy, moving objects with your head. They both are very different from each other, one is associated with the brain, being intelligent and tactical, and the other with the physical body and strength. In most cases, they are not compatible. But if I present my character powers in a similar way I’ll be able to give him/her more powers, he/she will be stronger and the skill tree in the game will be bigger, thus enchasing the gaming experience for the player.
The idea behind the creation of the powers is really interesting and innovative. If I end up with a metamorphosis like that or close to it I’ll have to come back and further research it and explore other ways to change it. I think it falls into PEGI 12 rating and if it doesn’t I can always change something to be different, more teen orientated.
For now, I am done with my research, if something comes up I’ll go back and research it. I can start working on the more exciting part. First I’ll have to gather ideas for who my character is going to be or what. This will be done with two methods mind map and words association after I have chosen an idea I’ll have to further explore and decide it is the right one. Then I’ll do an exploration of materials and techniques, to decide in what way I’m going to present my character. The final step is the development of the character.
This is the mind map method for ideas generation.
After I was completed the mind map I gave it one more look to clearly see the ideas in it. I could make a lot of characters from here that will fall in a PEGI 12 rating, for example, he could gain psychological powers like bending time or telepathy; he can evolve and get hardened skin that comes with super strength; he can be a mutant with abilities and upgrade them, along with many others. The ideas are really good and if applied in the right way can also be original, but first I’ll do the second method, word association.
The bonus side of this method that if done correctly you can not only get an idea of the powers and look of your character, you also can set the story or at least parts of it. For example with the third column, my character’s story is set in the future where humanity is colonizing different planets and solar systems, but something goes wrong and there is a war. The character will be some kind of a transformer, but he can turn back into a human. The first column is similar to the third one but is set in medieval times. I wasn’t able to do a very good job with the second one, it doesn’t follow any kind of story nor does it reveal at least the powers or looks of the character.
After further examination of both methods and their ideas, I decided to combine the medieval story with a power from the mind map, hardened skin and super strength. But I will alter it a little, the hardened skin will be made of dragon scales. I’ll have to match his personality with his powers because the powers of a character are a way of representing him to the public. For example, a character whose powers are to manipulate people’s minds will be viewed as a villain, even if he/she is the protagonist people’s first reaction will be that he is a bad guy.
Proposal
Backstory
Ruth lives a medieval world where monsters exist and he hunts them for a living. He is a monster hunter, he hunts them in the exchange of money. Ruth lives in a big city called Ravyrin. In the game’s first two chapters Ruth takes a job for an unknown type of monster when he manages to locate it Ruth finds out that it is a dragon. After certain events pass the dragon gives Ruth part of its power. From then on the player can upgrade those powers through the course of the game.
Visual Description
Ruth is 25-year-old human male. He is over 2 meters tall and ‘buffed’. His light brown hair stops just before his ears and is very messy. He has sea blue eyes and a sharp nose. When hunting Ruth usually wears medium defence leather armour with some parts a being made of metal. The armour covers his entire arms. His left hand has an armguard and a glove with metal where the knuckles are. He wears big mountain boots with metal fronts. On his right side, he keeps his sword, a rather strange but powerful blade that he found a couple of months prior to the game’s events. On his back, he keeps his musket. Ruth has a few pouches on him with different provisions water, ammo, food etc. After he gets his powers Ruth can transform his skin into scales that hardened and strengthened his body. He grows claws but can bring them back if he wanted too. His eyes have a blue fire-like aura inside them and part of his teeth are fangs.
Personality
Ruth is energetic, adventurous and curious. Since a young age, he wanted to fight monsters and has trained for it. He is very dedicated and always does what he says. Ruth still hasn’t tasted defeat in combat against any monster. Ruth is saving money to move in an outer city that closer to the wilds where there are more monsters. Because he wants to explore more of the world and to test his strength.
I have chosen the way Ruth looks based on the idea that the game is not going to be an exactly open world. Rockstar has a lot of open world games and GTA is one of them, in order to have something different to the GTA formula I think it would be a good idea for the game to have a world style similar to ‘The Witcher 2’. Because it’s not going to be an RPG I can make some of his appearance more personalised like the sword, its something unique that he will keep throughout the game. He will be able to change his musket for a better one if he has the money. The armour can be left like that or it can also be upgraded which depends on the developers.
Exploration of Materials
The final piece can be presented with any 2D techniques like pencils, black and white, water painting, oil painting or it can with any digital techniques like pixel art, animation, realism, stylised or in a 3D program like Maya for example. Due to time management I, won’t be able to explore a lot of methods, nonetheless, I will try to do to as much as possible.
First I decided to experiment with pixel art animation. The animations were made on www.piskelapp.com. This site is mainly used pixel animation.
This is the first animation that I did. It is a stick man stuck in a cage trying to escape. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do something amazing on the first try, so I went with something more simple. Now looking at it I can spot different things that could have been animated in a better way like in the end when he is jumping, it was meant to show that he was happy to be free, but it looks like he shrunk and in the last frame went back to his original size. If that was fixed and more scenes were added, to look more fluid, it would look a lot better.
I found that doing this kind of animation was interesting and decided to continue with the exploration of this method. This animation shows a popular meme, where countries are represented with balls coloured in their flag, basically, Russia sees that someone stole it’s vodka and gets mad. The main problem and struggle with this animation was the scale. I didn’t know that you can alter in how many pixels the animation will be and thus working with a low number of pixels I couldn’t realise completely my idea for the animation. When Russia transforms into a ‘monster Russia’ I was struggling with the scale ratio a lot, I couldn’t draw certain things the way I wanted to and in the end, I got really frustrated and didn’t finish it.
This is the third and final animation that I did with Piskel. You can see a diver jumping from the board and having a rather unpleasant fall. From all three animations, I like this one the most. It is not detailed as the second one, but it is much more fluid. If I had more time I could have added more details and change the stick-man because this one looks too simple.
Even though I found this method interesting to work with, I’m sure I won’t be using it for my final piece. Mainly because it is animated pixel art, which can be very time consuming, specifically because I’m still new to this sphere of design. Only this simple animation took around an hour to do and feel that it is too early for me to try and do animation I’ll first need a lot of practice for which I lack the time.
MagicaVoxel
For the 2D methods I will try a couple of different stylised techniques. In order to choose a style that will suit my character. One very important thing to remember when you are drawing stylised characters or are doing something associated with it is that everything is stereotypical. The way the character looks represents also the way he acts, thinks and talks. For example, if a character is a coward he will be probably be showed with glasses, big front teeth, almost non-existent chin, thin shoulders etc.
This is the first style that I tried to do. It is your typical muscular guy, that thinks he is smarter than he actually is and he will probably threaten you or be suspicious of you. The sketch took approximately an hour and something to do, which is a bit much but I wanted to make it look as good as possible or at least at the level I’m currently capable of. I’m not too happy how the right hand turned up to look. It feels like it’s a little out of proportions, but I couldn’t adjust it. After more practice on stylised drawing, I’ll be able to fix mistakes like that, even though they are not that fatal. The shading looks good in my opinion, it’s not perfect of course there is always room for improvement, but I’m kind of happy with it.
In this style, the characters are in a ‘chibi’ size. Basically, they are compressed to the point where they look cute. But chibi characters can be made to look scary and not cute if needed to. It is also more detailed than the previous one, therefore it took me more time to get it to this stage, about two hours. I lose track of time and try to do as much as possible, even if it is a simple sketch like that. I also found myself erasing a lot of stuff and doing them over, that’s why I stopped at this point. I’m not too happy with the shading this time, particularly where there is fabric like the gloves and scarf. I tried to make it look more fluid, to look like the fabric is in rhythm with the movement of the body.
From all three styles, this one was the hardest to achieve, for two reasons. The body proportions are the same for a realistic style drawing, which means that the muscles need to look like on a normal human. The second reason is that I was copying it from a 3D view, which doesn’t have lines and it’s mainly shading, which makes it look more real and 3D. Only on the left arm, I spent at least 30 minutes because I’m still very inexperienced in the anatomy of the human body. While drawing the fingers of the left hand I actually held the TV remote with my hand in a similar grip to see how the fingers line up. In my opinion, the fingers turned rather well and as for the face it could have been a lot better, I just need to practise more.
Bibliography
Google Images
https://foervraengd.deviantart.com/art/UNDERSTANDING-ANATOMY-part-I-220251993
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/b3Yod
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/331085010090514262/
Games Design 