Quest For Dedoro

Concept Artwork

After interviewing the students of their interest in playable character(s), the team was given the impression that they enjoy customizability in the character they play as, from cosmetics to weapons. They show strong interest in a companion creature not limited to existing animals. As for aesthetics inspiration of games, the children favors cartoonish styles like Pokemon, Fall Guys, Eggy Party, and Animal Crossing. They favor things like clean line art, flexible details, vibrant colors, a chibi art style for the characters (the kind that is about 2-3 heads proportion), organic style overall, with a top-down perspective throughout the game, similar to Among Us.

Designing the player

The first version of the player was a mix of inspiration between Spiral Knights player character and a fighter design from Knights of Glory, leaning heavier to the latter. Despite at relatively early stage production, we have decided to obscure the head design as a mean to scope down on character customization production. It didn't look practical to make for both me, as the main artist working on the sprite art, and for our programmer who will have to find a way to implement customization mechanics. After completing this first version, there were several suggestions for change given from the team, and with more consideration, I eventually decided to restart the design. The design felt too stiff and the helmet looks very out of place compared to the concept of the world we're building up.

With the second design, I wanted to lean much heavier to Spiral Knights player design, with an oval-shaped body, bigger hands and feet, and a helmet design that leaves the eyes clear to see. I strongly believe that the eyes of a character can make the character feel more alive and easier to connect to, as it's said to be the window to a person's soul. Bigger but simplified accessories and armor pieces on the character makes the character easier to look at and more identifiable. And since it's a starting character, I thought a weak but cute weapon like a stick would be very suitable!

Designing the Bird Companion

The bird companion was inspired by stellar jays. Initially a simple design to add variety to the mythical animals choices, I thought an elemental bird would be a good addition to the choices. It was surprising to me to find out that was the most favored design! Thinking the design was too simple initially, I added a little more details on the wings and especially a lot of contrasting colors to the line art. I kept the color palette blue themed and depended on the line art colors to make the bird shine. Unfortunately, that was far too complex to be implemented into an animation, and the details were obscured when scaled down and put into the game. And so I've came up with the simpler design and animation that we have now.

Sprite Art & Animation

Player Character Animation (Unity Interface)

Idle animation

Walk animation

Attack animation

Hurt animation

Interact animation

Dead animation

Player character layers order

Death still image with color variation based on player's selection at start of game

The player character is inspired by the player character from Spiral Knights, with a chibi proportion similar to what the children preferred and an obscurity on its identity to focus more on the customization of the outfit rather than facial and head features like hair and head accessories. Due to time constraint, majority of the promised customizability had to be simplified to customizability only on the overall color palette.

Bird Companion

The blue bird was eventually voted to be the most favored companion wanted in the game. Scoping down the game, we decided we will have only one companion for now.

Raccoon Enemy

Level Design

Closely working with one of my cohort members, Nathan Lawson, we were actively working on the level designs, inspired by our favorite games such as Spiral Knights and several Kirby Games.

Forest biome: Level 1, Version 1

Inspired by Spiral Knights dungeon layouts, we want the players to explore a map with branching paths that leads them to relatively straightforward areas to press buttons to unlock doors and fight simple enemies. The final puzzle that unlocks the path to the next level

Forest biome: Level 1, Version 2

After having the first version adapted to the game as a playable prototyle, we've received feedback requesting more puzzles and enemies. They like what we have but they want more.

Forest biome: Level 2

The second level is meant to lead up to a mini boss fight, so we thought that we should not distract the player with as much puzzles to solve as how much there were in the previous level. A few doors to open and leading to the large mini boss room and a small path that leads to the end of the level should be straightforward enough while keeping up the engagement.

UI and Title

Customization screen (contributed button base)

User Interface throughout the game