Main menu
|
I wanted to make a picture which would allow the player an understanding of what might have happened and what was going to happen. I did this through showing the moths and their journey towards the cave where further interaction would take place in a cavelike environment. I wanted to present the main character and the child which you have to find and I wanted them to come flying towards the camera. The meadow behind makes a good contrast to the dark cave and also clearly signals that something ominous might happen after this scene, and prepares the player for the next step and in a natural way lead the player into the scene of the game. I also choose to make the buttons at the same time. The buttons that were needed were options, start and quit. I choose to design them as square buttons with a rock texture, so that they should both blend in with the rock structure of the cave and still be clearly distinguishable. I wanted the text to be clear and clean like the rest of the game in it’s present state. I knew what feeling and expression I wanted, and to achieve that I did some experimenting with style, colours, structure, light and shadows. My limitations was, among others, in the time I had for this part of the project, so I had to decide what level I wanted to reach with this so that these images were in line with the rest. Considering how much polish I would have time to put on it all, I had to decide what to focus on the most and why, to do what would be best for the entirety of the game. I decided to put the buttons in the dark area to the right of the cave entrance, since you usualy read an image from left to right and I wanted the effect of the moths flying in to be the first thing the player focus upon.
 |
This time I will adress how I made the initial scene with my main menu and the belonging artefacts/buttons. I had a dialogue with the designer and the other members of my team about how we thought about the look of the main menu. I then went home and made some initial sketches traditionally and then made different colour sketches and compositions for the image in Photoshop. When I was happy with the result I presented a clean and clear mockup for the group, based on everyones wishes and my interpretation of them. Since the game is set in a cave, we wanted the game to start with an image with a view from inside the entrance to the cave, looking out on the meadow outside. I presented the mockup I had made, and told the group that I was also going to add the adult moth and a moth child as if they were coming flying in from the meadow into the cave, and that I would also add a hole in the wall which light would come in through. I also told them that the finished image would not have the photo realistic look parts of it currently had (since it was a composition of sample images and colour sketches), but would be in line with the other graphics in the game.