LOOK DEVELOPMENT for Video Games

Here is a basic primer on moving ideas quickly into visual development.

Video games always seem in a rush to get to the idea that will then take five to seven years and millions of dollars to execute. It's a mystery to me how studios sometimes do this. In many of the studios I've worked at this is more typical than I'd like. Luckily, I haven't been on projects like Star Citizen...but I've come close.

Usually it felt like a boot camp that demanded much of me when it came to bringing visuals to the table. To get people excited over a simple pitch and get their buy-in to continue further development was a high-pressure situation. It was tougher especially if you really liked the pitch and only had three hours,  or three days to get it in.

As a for instance here's a game AMAZON GAME STUDIOS (AGS) actually launched after reviewing nearly a hundred two page pitches.

It was a castle siege game where the player launched projectiles at hordes of various enemies. It was AGS's first mobile action game. 

Now...after reviewing the paper pitch, the art below is what kicked things off into the next phase where executives gave us the nod and the budget to pursue making the game.

Because it was a straight forward game, there was no need for mood boards. They got it right away and gave us the GREENLIGHT.

Nearly nine months of development and this is what they came up with.

I didn't actually work on the game, but I got it started. It turned out alright for a first effort. As a launch title on Kindle Fire, Amazon wasn't happy about it's monetary performance. Three months later it got pulled and was never seen again.

It was back to the drawing board and onto another game. It’s what I would call a “spirit-killer” of sorts when it comes to team morale. 

In some cases, studios will break up into small teams to go off and come up with ideas. They'll put together people from all disciplines: game designers, developers, artists, etc. This helps round out any game idea that gets pitched. A lot of times they TIMEBOX this stuff, giving the teams anywhere between a day to three days or maybe a few weeks. All depends on the urgency.

Below are some mood boards for something called we Mercury (production title only). I can't even remember the particulars of the project, but you may get a sense of what it was or should have been at least from the elements that I had put together. A common theme or thread runs throughout from stuff I pulled off the internet or various Pinterest boards that I had been collecting.

Of course, this never really went anywhere, and maybe that's why this process for studios has to be down and dirty and quick! Even though I disagree with the approach, they do have a point.

So on the next project I ended up drawing most of the stuff, because sometimes you just don't get the right feel from found elements. Along with the header image that accompanies this installment, the next two pieces give a general idea of the character-centric game. The idea here was to illustrate the player characters in what would be a retro battlebot game.

I think I actually had another illustration where the bots were battling aliens, but I didn't like the way it turned out. And surprise!!! Neither did management.

Much of what you need to visually capture in the pitch can fall into a few categories:

• Biggest Idea First- Maybe this could go under greatest moment but what would be the Greatest Moment in a SIM game or an RTS (real time strategy) game? Encapsulating the gamespace sometimes helps. By roughing in the UI and giving a player view sometimes that's enough to put the idea over.

• Characters- If this is a character-focused game like Tomb Raider or Mario Bros. you probably want to give it your best shot and knock out the lead player character while adding other supporting elements like location and enemies. Character, setting, circumstance may be the order of priority here.

• Greatest Moment- If it's a boss battle, a cool weapon taking out enemies, or a summoning of some special power, this is probably going to be a rapid execution of KEY ART that gets the reviewers excited.

• General Overall Shape- Like the MOOD BOARDS above, this is a quick way to outlay all the elements you see the game shape taking. There should be a cohesion. Something you seek whether it's shape language, color, lighting, rendering, you name it. It should, at a glance tell you a lot about where this game is going.

There may be more categories that I haven't thought of or have experienced yet.

When I was designing the opening sizzle reel for THE AGENCY, beyond storyboards, I had to find a way to convincingly map out all the MOTION GRAPHICS that were needed for both the Art Director and the Technical Director who would go on to partner with me.

He would create 3D assets and simple animations that I could then composite together in After Effects. Since I was teaching myself Motion Graphics, the below beat sheet dev boards were the best I could come up with.

Here’s what I came up with.

I went on to create more cinematics based on locations that would be in the game. Trying to sell this idea to the AD would give me the permission to work on it and get some other help as needed.

Even though the AD was really into this second set of boards some internal strife within the studio went down and we had to put the brakes on this.

The nature of creating video games can be turbulent and chaotic, but by having best practices in place and being quick on your feet there is a lot of potential to create some pretty impressive stuff. It takes practice and perseverance. It also helps if you have a deep well-spring of REFERENCE at hand to draw upon in times of crisis.

Google images will only get you so far in a moment’s notice. And in many cases that alone is just not gonna cut it.

=BTP=