Crates
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This week’s challenge for me was making the crates. During the playtesting session we had a problem with players not knowing that the crates were a pick up. They kept avoiding them because they thought it was cliffs or something else to avoid. I can agree that it was hard to see that they were crates. It looked more like a reef. I made a few different designs, but it was still hard to see that they were something positive, something that you want to pick up. We discussed a few new ideas in the group; making them fewer and bigger, adding a glow to make them more appealing, maybe having some sort of power up-symbol on the crates. Just making them bigger did not work. It still just looked like rubble in the water. Adding the glow disrupted the feeling of the game. It did not fit our style at all. We discussed having the power up-symbol on the crates and decided that it was probably the clearest way to show the player that the crates are something to pick up. We looked at a few different symbols but decided on a simple question mark. Since the game is set in japan we wanted the symbol on the crates to be Japanese looking. I looked at some Japanese stamps and liked the idea of a red stamped question mark. I started playing with it in photoshop and the result was approved by the rest of the group. I thought it was a bit thin and hard to see so I made another option with a hand painted question mark mark in Japanese ink. I liked it quite a lot, it was bigger and easier for the player to see. Unfortunately, the rest of my team did not agree with me. They liked the stamp design more. I can understand why since I had worked more on that art and it was prettier. The hand painted one was big and kind of clumsily made. It was a democratic decision and the team voted for stamp. So, a stamp is what you will see in the game!
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