Category: Research

As I have been put in a group to make a game for Violet’s Dates, I will be analysing the GDD to give me the information needed for this module. But before I elaborate further, this is the team I will be working with for this project and the role I’ve been given to fulfil is the character artist!

Game Design Pillars

In order for us to stay true to the initial concept, we will be following these game pillars:

Why should the artists care about the game pillars?

Although me and Izzy are both artists for the game, it’s still important that we both stay relatively close-knit so that we are on the same page in terms of what we want to convey through art. I have made some notes about the game pillars and how I can contribute to the project.

Character Artist

As the character artist in my group, it is my responsibility to draw the characters and make any design changes if I see fit. I have done further research on the responsibilities of my role and the pipeline a character artist follows.

In our vertical slice, my group have agreed on making the game up until the end of date 1. This means that I will be drawing Yami and Violet. If our group has time, we can have time for an extra character.

What I will be doing for this project:

• Partial narrative
• Yami full body pose
• Yami sitting down + x5 different facial expressions
• Violet headshot
• Poster art
• Cutscenes x2

Characters

Yami

Character notes

Yami is the first date you have while you are expecting your best friend. During this Café date, you assume he is a natural supermodel because of his fancy looks and confident demeanour.

• Name : Yami
• Age : 20
• Occupation : Model

• Good ending : Either Violet decides to leave the date or stand up for herself.
• Bad ending : Going on another date leaving you emotional drained after

Violet

Character notes

The playable and naïve main character. She enjoys the concept of falling in love, as well as watching romantic films and styling herself. She frequently wears cool tones which gives of a more calm appearance.

After I had completed looking at the responsibilities of a character designer, I decided to do research on a character designers pipeline. 

But why do research on character pipeline?

I am looking into how a pipeline serves a character designer and why it is such a great tool for them.

A pipeline (in the context of games design) is something that refers to the structure of leading up to creating something in a video game, from concept to finalisation. 

I looked a 3D character design video by Edgeloop who has experience in the games design industry and I have taken notes of the steps a character design must take to get to the final product. Although I am not doing a 3D character, it’s something that I may have to do something much later down the line in my career. 

Out of these steps I have taken notes of, I will only do the first two. But as I have experience with making characters in a team, I made my own pipeline of how I plan on completing this role: 

As the game we have chosen is a dating sim, I thought this would be a good opportunity to look into other dating sims of varying themes and quality. To keep track of my thoughts, opinions, and criticisms of the games, I made notes whilst I was playing (includes a short description of the game, features and the estimated time it took me to finish). All these games I have showcased are available on Itch!

By looking at these games, I hope to expand my knowledge of narrative design. As different games require different language structures, I have looked at different genres of dating simulators to broaden my perspective of how the art of conversation can be used to engage the player.

I have applied what I have learnt in this section to my narrative design development.

Ninefold Promise – Flaming hot lemon

I started off with my research with a game made in 1 month from a game jam!  

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TOUCH STARVED (demo) – Red Spring Studio

This game is a complete contrast from the previous game, from aesthetics to the premise. I don’t usually engage in dark romance dating sims, so I thought that this would be a great opportunity to check out what I’m missing. 

This is the part where the game got really interesting for me and I thought about my options thoroughly, I chose Kuras (4th guy) in the end as I liked his character the most and his secretive side. Just as I thought the game was going to get good, the demo stopped and my jaw was floored.

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My SWEET! Housemate (demo) – Sourmilk, Ghost-realms

Now taking a break from dark romance and heart warming romance, I wanted to try a different genre of dating sim. This time, I wanted to try a comedy dating sim. Initially, I was attracted to this game’s advertising of its intractability. I also noticed that this game was made on Ren’Py, which is the engine that we will be using for our game!

Screenshots of gameplay: 

YONEYAMA MAI

Location: Japan

Medium: Digital

Yoneyama Mai is an assistant director, animator and illustrator from Japan. She has worked on may notable anime such as:

Kiznaiver: Character designer, chief animation director, and animation director

Kill La Kill: Animation director, key animation, and assistant animation director

FLCL Progressive: Sub-character design and costume design

Cyberpunk: Edge Runners: Concept art, story board, and main animations

And these are just a few to name!

Below are images of some of her work:

I have been a follower of Yoneyama’s work for some time now and I look up to her. I find that her illustrative works are truly captivating. She masterfully grabs the viewer’s attention through her balanced composition, colours, and 3D-like visual effects that make the experience look more lively and immersive. The ability to evoke emotion through subtle effects is something I would want to possess as someone who is interested in illustrative works.

Character Design Works

Although I couldn’t find work that was confirmed by her (probably due to an NDA), I have found some character sheets from an anime she has worked on:

What differentiates these characters?

As we know, what defines as a good character design is a character that is: Visually appealing, clearly communicates their personality and has distinct features that sets them apart.

For this semester, I have been granted the role of main character designer. A character designer is someone who visualises and creates the look of individual characters.

A character designer is someone who visualises and conceptualises the look of individual characters displaying action, anatomy and varying perspectives. They are usually given a description by the director and turn their personality into physical qualities through facial expression, poses and posture. 

A good character designer will:  

• Have a keen eye for detail in human expression 
• Has the ability to understand the story of a character 
• Creates memorable and iconic characters 
• Has a very high level of technical skill
• They will have a passion for animation, as a medium and a love for the industry
• Have an understanding of the capabilities of an animator

Character designers are also responsible for creating multiple variations of a design for one character. They then show these to a director and implement any feedback they receive to achieve a result that they are happy with. They also carry out research into the anatomy of characters and relevant fashion styles. A character designer’s role heavily relies on the ability to draw well. Once a design has been approved of, the character designer will then create a model sheet which will show the character from multiple angles. In 3D animation, the modeller will use this sheet to create the character. Where as in 2D animation, the animator will use the sheet to ensure that the character is “on model”. Character designers are employed by an animation studio rather than freelancing.

Tools of the trade:

(ScreenSkills)

A circus was and still is a source of entertainment consisting of people and some trained animals displaying a sort of unusual skill, LaVahn Gerry Hoh and Robert Lewis Parkinson (2018).

Origins

The expansion of circus culture in America 

When the circus concept reached America, it had a dramatic altercations. Although it imitated everything English circus’ had but with additional performances. Later on, showmen would utilise exotic animals such as horses and train them to perform in big crowds of people Wensjoe (2019). 

New circus era 

Then, the entire circus concept was formed in the 1960s and in the 1970s, one of the most renowned circuses, Cirque du Soleil was inspired by a contemporary circus called the Pickle Family Circus. By using different effects such as light and sound, prompts and colourful costumes in different shows whilst travelling cities, they have amazed the world with their unique form of entertainment. 

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Did kids really join the circus?

This video explores how circuses would’ve worked back in the 19^th century. These two women set up an interview in Wisconsin, a state that has deep roots with the circus culture: 

In the late 1800s, the best way to advertise an event was to stick posters everywhere, this greatly  favored circuses. Sometimes thousands of these posters would be shipped in advance and workers would have spent an entire day sticking the posters on any surface they could find with thick brushes and wheat paste glue. Before technology advanced and trains were invented, the main form of transport were horse carriages, but because the horses needed to sleep during the night, it sometimes made the entire crew late to certain performances. 

The golden ages of circus life began a couple years after the civil war in America and not too long after slavery was abolished. Due to it being now illegal for people to own slaves, this meant that black people were free to find their own lines of work; Some had even joined the circus. Although black people were allowed to join the circus, it didn’t mean that they were free from being treated radically different from their white crew mates. They would also not be allowed to perform in the main acts, instead, they would perform the side shows, more often than not, they would be racist performances to appeal to the white audiences at the time. This gave black people a very complex relationship with the circus as they were treated less than human most of the time, but on the other hand, it gave them opportunities to connect with other black Americans and spread their culture and music. 

Kids would also join the circus (teenagers), but because some of them were so young, they couldn’t perform in any of the acts. Instead, they would do smaller tasks such as: selling popcorn, selling tickets, cleaning up in the tent. It was only the older ones that were allowed to practice stunts. PBS Wisconsin Education (2024) 

Why did people run away and join the circus? 

There are an array of answers that can range from person to person, some of the reasons are as follows: For their self-esteem and confidence, because someone has the physical skills to engage in such work, some may also seek fame and recognition amongst the crowd and it offers a form of escapism. The images below showcase why some people chose to join the circus.

As my game is set in the mid 20th century, I went around my home town to take pictures of the buildings to get an overall sense of what it could look like in game. Aylesbury is a town that is located at the South-East of England and was once a trading market. It was also important for its ducks and dairy produce but is now expanding on other industries such as food processing, light engineering and printing. (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, 2024)

This environment specifically is utilised in the game’s intro when they are introduced to the world that the protagonist lives in. It should state that the protagonist lives in a cold, lonely environment. The characteristics that stand out in this environment are the:

• Cobblestoned paths
• Old, narrow buildings
• Grey atmosphere
• Clock tower

The next step in my plan was to look at other forms of media similar to mine. I’m going to be reviewing other games and videos with varying genres and aesthetic. Some

Exhibit of Sorrows 

I initially found out about this game when I was fairly young and was tricked into thinking it was a cute point and  click game. The Exhibit of sorrows is a 10 minute horror game set in a circus-themed exhibit, each room showcases a unique clown doll and the player must interact with a certain component in the room to continue onto the next room. However, as the game progresses, evidently, it becomes more and more unsettling and you as the player are made to do these cruel things to the clowns in order to escape. 

As mentioned, I played this game before when I was younger and remembered being creeped out and disturbed by this game. Initially, the game starts off pleasant, you interact with these objects in each doll’s room, a nice touch that this game has is that in each room, it has a plaque card to display what each doll is. 

This routine is kept up until the end of the exhibit; just as you leave, the power cuts consequently, making the room dark. This is when you turn back and leave the rooms the way you found them (you need to undo what you had done to the doll). Once you have gone back all the way to the start, you try to escape but there’s something stopping you from doing so. Now you have to find another way out of the exhibit and the only way is through the rooms you were just in. However, this time it feels more sinister… Just as before, you interact with the dolls, but the first doll that you were introduced to seems to keep inflating, he gets bigger, bigger and bigger until, he explodes. The plaque card is replaced and Mr. Floaty is no more. It is now called an “Industrial pump”.  

The plaque card replacement is such a simple touch, it adds to the cruel and twisted essence of the game; and as the player you have feelings of overwhelming guilt because the dolls on display are cute, they’ve done nothing to you and to an extent they present a form of sentience. My favourite exhibit in the game is Mr. Handy because I think he has the worst fate out of all the other exhibits.  

Mechanics: Click and interact – player has to interact with the exhibit and try to get the key that unlocks the next room.

Paper Lily

Paper Lily is one of the games I found on Steam out of curiosity and wanting to get into the RPG genre more (the fact that it’s free, is a crime). If I had never played this game, I don’t think I would’ve been as fascinated by RPGs as much. Paper Lily is a top down, pixel RPG that is story rich and where your choices matter. This game took me roughly 12 hours to complete – not including the other paths the player can deviate from – and I loved every minute spent playing this game.

As the player, you venture the world as Lacie, who is a girl that is supposedly “cursed” and attempts to find answers on how to lift the curse and find out who placed it. The journey starts off with Lacie receiving a golden letter with instructions on summoning a bus that goes past midnight. This bus will take Lacie to another world where there is no return, In this game, the player has to interact and explore the surrounding environment, collect objects, solve puzzles and meet new characters. It’s also important to note that this game is a psychological horror. Although the horror isn’t in your face most of the time, I felt paranoid when playing this game. Despite the cute visuals and charming characters, something has always felt off; whether I was exploring the train station, her home, or Mrs Knives house. Then I realised, the true horror behind this game wasn’t in it’s creatures (although some of the creatures here were terrifying at points!), but within the art and timing of certain cues. For example, when the player is already paranoid, the tension is released by the drop of a glass bottle or a painting on the wall changing completely. This form of gaslighting is affective as it questions the player’s own sanity and makes them think, are they really alone?

My favourite part of this game was exploring deeper into the forest, the area felt magical and whimsical. It was part of the game where there was a big tree in the middle of the map and the roots would enter different areas. This didn’t completely disperse my paranoia though, in the different corners of the map, there would be other environments to explore, each with different puzzles and tribulations to encounter.

Mechanics: Puzzles, sneaking, exploration

Homicipher

I stumbled across this game through TikTok and was drawn to the characters and their design, this is because the characters in this world are monsters. Homicipher is an interactive adventure, dating horror, and language deciphering game. You play as a woman who doesn’t know how she ended up in this environment in the first place. The goal of the game is to survive for as long as possible and try to escape what seems to be another dimension whilst also talking to the other monsters and decipher their language.

This game has one of the most unique mechanics I’ve seen in games (in probably my life), you as the player have to try to decipher their language, however, you aren’t going in here completely blind. In certain rooms, there will be monsters that are willing to help you understand their language. By clicking on certain objects, you can view what it is and input what the word means. For example, when the option is available, you can click on an object in the room and replace the foreign language with English. However, this game will have a few mistranslations as the original game is supposed to be in Japanese. Not only that but the monster’s language seems to be very simple and doesn’t have most words. A monster could mean to say “Can you give me your heart?” but when inputting the words it comes up as “You give me heart?”

Homicipher takes a lot of patience and problem solving to decipher the language as it’s not guaranteed that the player will get the word the first time. Admittedly, I got really frustrated, especially in the beginning, but this is because I’m generally an impatient person. It took a lot of trial and error to get to a place where I could grasp the concept of what the monsters were saying, but in the end it paid off.

Mechanics: Language deciphering, problem solving, click and explore.