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Introduction

I found my inspiration through research, the research section mainly focuses on photos and artwork I made, some come with short paragraphs of explanations. I have done different types of research, including field research, desk based research, art research.

Concept

I decided to make a Halloween themed game. The world is going to be designed with the structure of Halloween, sweets, horror, cuteness, vintage and egl culture.

The process….

For me, I’m personally a chocolate lover, I had a trip to Tokyo last summer, and I bought some chocolates as souvenirs for my classmates as sharing things I like feels like sharing happiness.

I was glad to see my classmates appreciate my gifts, but at the same time, I was wondering  what if people don’t like or are even afraid of chocolate? I came up with an idea of making a horror related to chocolate

As it was going to be Halloween, my accommodation was full of Halloween decorations.The most memorable deco is probably the skeleton at the elevator. It is a toy with sound effects and it even moves. Last week, when I went into the elevator, I was first scared by its physical appearance and the noise it made. After a little panic attack I found it funny

My reaction towards the decoration went from terrified to amused. I found that both positive and negative emotions can happen at the same time. I was thinking that if players can experience both positive and negative emotion when they play my game.

World building (human world) :

I decided to have my setting based in the UK during the late 30s. I did some research about the pictures of streets during that period.

I also did some drawing of a street during the period for a deeper understanding

World building (Choco Hell) :

After looking inspiration of the human world setting, I found some pictures online of cartoon art styles of sweets world and hell

I combined the concept of a sweet world and hell by drawing as an experiment of my designs of different areas in choco hell.

Character design : Jazzie

Jazzie is the main character and the only character with animal structure. The reason for making Jazzie as an animal image is because she is the mascot of a sweets shop, and animals are commonly made as icons representing labels.

Jazzie is inspired by the structure of pink jazzies heart, which is a vintage candy. I used the color format of it, (red, white, cream color). It echoes the theme of vintage and sweets.

First draft of Jazzie’s design

Pre-final draft of Jazzie’s design (intended to let Jazzie has a pair of Ruby eyes but it look bad when they are colored so no)

Final design of Jazzie

Character design : Donutman

Donutman is another major character of the game, he is Jazzie’s alley. We know there is a hole in a donut, however, holes can be seen as damaged when it comes to nature, so I thought redesigning donutman’s hole to an irregular shape would make the hole look hollow and increase the horror feeling of the character.

Those two draft of donutman were heart shaped donuts with a huge hollowed hole in the middle, but the holes looked like broken mouths, they were too horrible for a kind character so no 

Final design of donutman

I still like to keep the heart shape feature for donutman as it is a cute element of it. Instead of making donutman a heart shaped donut, I changed the position of heart shape from his body to his hole. He is a strawberry flavoured donut with white chocolate coat on top and heart shaped sprinkles. People can easily imagine how he tastes with just looking at the design.I designed a pair of baking gloves for him as to protrude the theme of sweets (people bake cakes and cookies with that) and also as a protection for fights. The shoes were designed to match the baking gloves

Character design : Marshmallow goblins

I was thinking of making a bunch of tiny weak enemies for players to levels. I referenced the idea of angry birds, they are small and look similar to each other, they are somehow weak but have a great sense of cooperation.

image of angry birds

For sweets which are small in size and with many of them, I immediately thought of marshmallows. I would like to have a bunch of marshmallow army to be the weak villain in Choco Hell, and we have marshmallow goblins.

First draft of marshmallow goblins, I thought they looked too kind as a groups of villain so no

Final design of marshmallow goblins

I changed the shape of their eyes to look more evil, and removed the body part from the design to make them look even tinier. They are in different colors and the shape of their mouths are also different, they all have unpleasant facial expressions and pointy mouths for attack.

Character design : Cupcake Boooogy

After designing a weak villain, I created a final boss in Choco hell which is strong and no longer looking cute. I would like to make it a combination between monster and sweets.

For monsters, I referenced the structure of the monster octopus of the myth, “The Kraken”. It was a giant sea monster with long tentacles which is many people’s nightmare. For sweets, I referenced with chocolate cream cupcake, I would like to draw a melting cream top and which kind of look like melting monster

Image of the Kraken

Draft of Cupcake boooogy, I was satisfied with it and I made it as my final design. I added a crown for it to states out it is like a king of Choco Hell

Final design of Cupcake boooogy

Levels

I reference with the old version of cookie run, the game only allows the mechanic to run or jump instead of walking, it creates an exciting atmosphere

Gameplay scene of Cookie Run

Jazzie’s room

Life Makeover inspired me a lot for this game pillar. Life Makeover is a game that allows player to customize the physical appearance of the persona, costumes and even the persona’s house. I would like to create an interactive gameplay mode like Life Makeover did, which allows player to costuming their own persona and house.

With the limitation of time, I can only set the target lower. I intended to create a gameplay mode allow players to change the persona, Jazzie’s clothes and decorate her bed room

Life Makeover game scene (physical appearance customization)

Life Makeover game scene (costume customization)

Life Makeover game scene (Exterior plus interior house customization)