"Bluebeard" Week 2 - William Marshall - Designs and Menu UI

"Bluebeard" - William Marshall

Week 2 - Designs and Menu UI

Intro

Last week, I published a short list that detailed the work that I would be doing throughout Week 2. It involved the planning of my level, the planning of my menu and some character-based sketching. As such, these are the tasks that I will be presenting and talking about in this week's blog.

Production of my game is continuing as planned and I have no particular snags thus far. Bluebeard is planned to be a horror-styled game where the Player will be chased by Bluebeard as they flee through the castle's dungeon. (taking inspiration from the Fable). This will allow them to jump on various platforms and objects whilst also encouraging the Player to keep moving.

Menu UI

Planning my Main Menu was the first task that was completed this week. I planned it by looking at pre-existing horror examples, experimenting with various fonts, sketching some arrangements for the main menu and writing up annotations of what I thought.

Task 1 - Main Menu Mood Board

My first task was looking at various Horror games that already existed on the market. Since I didn't mind when they were released, it was more important to look at how their menu's were laid out, what tropes I could pick out, similarities that I could find and identifying inspiration for my own menu. A lot of these examples shared multiple similiarities (hence why I have written a list in the top left corner). As I began to look deeper, I decided on being inspired by 'Slender', 'Five Night's at Freddy's' and 'SOMA' due to their various similarities and simplistic layouts (lack of clutter) which still succeeded in making me feel uneasy

Identifying the colours, text styles and menu layouts proved to be extremely helpful for my next two tasks, as I had a clear set of tasks ahead of me after I had put this mood board together. It also ensured that I had some good inspiration and references to refer back to for later usage.

Task 2 - Font Selection

Moving forward, I used the website 'DaFont' to download five different font examples in their Horror genre. These were: 'Who Asks Satan', 'Another Scream', 'Insomnia', 'Venom' and 'Horroroid', all of which I felt could be included in my game. However, I decided to compare them against eachother to see which one I liked the most. I wrote up a small list of buttons that would most likely be seen within my game (whilst making sure to include caps lock variants so I could see their effect).

In the end, I selected 'Horroroid' due to the reasons I mentioned in my annotation beside it. It proved to be my favourite out of the five and also fit my game the most. This task was actually quite enjoyable to do, as I felt that my experimentation was productive and relevant to my game, as I had a clear conclusion.

Task 3 - Menu Layouts

Finally, I drafted six different menu layouts based on the inspiration that I had gathered in my Mood Board. I managed to give all of them their own unique element that made them different from the others, whilst also not making them too wild or out-of-character for a Horror game. This was done simply within Photoshop, using the Horroroid font in order to see how my menu buttons would actually look in-game.

In the end, I went with the top-left example. It was inspired the most by 'Slender' and I loved it for the simplistic yet useful layout (more in-depth comments in the annotations).

Level Design

Task 1 - Parallax Scrolling Layout

During this week, I was introduced to the idea of Parallax Scrolling (which is where different layers of background move at different speeds to give the illusion of distance). Using the basic sketches from last week, I developed a small idea for my level whilst splitting each individual layer up into separate assets. I then mentioned what sort of material they would be and their various different colours - which will help me when it comes to making these assets in Pixel Art.

Even though I dislike my drawing, these were still useful blueprints/designs that actually show my development of ideas. I feel like splitting everything up into individual layers was a very smart idea.

Character Design

Task 1 - Pixel/Clothing Designs

Last week I began looking at clothing ideas for my Noblewoman (Player Character) and decided that it would be wise to do the same for Bluebeard. Additionally, I decided to draw their proportions similar to how their sprites will look in my mind, so that I have something to refer back to when I begin to actually produce assets.

I felt like I could've drawn quite a lot more, but I felt discouraged after Bluebeard's designs as I simply felt like the clothing was shoddily-drawn. Knowing this, I simply decided to move on rather than continue to get wound up about it.

Plans For Next Week

Since my Main Menu is proceeding at quite a rapid pace, I believe I will be able to develop and finish it off by the end of next week, as well as finalise my Level Design, Pixel Characters, Pickups and Gameplay Mechanics.

• Main Menu Creation
• Level Design Final
• Pickups (Coins, Key Pieces)
• Gameplay Mechanics