Animation / Cutscenes
Instead of a typical 24fps animation where each frame is drawn I will be drawing multiple portraits that can be smoothly transitioned between to imply movement and animation similarly to how an animatic works. For example I could have a neutral, happy and angry portrait for a character that you can switch between to make them seem alive.
Similarly, using Fungus (Fungus Ltd, 2020) you can animate character portraits to move across the screen and fade in or out which can be used to imply a character entering a scene or environment. With Fungus when a character isn’t talking in a scene they get greyed out to show that they aren’t talking, keeping the talking character in full colour.
User Interface
Although Fungus comes with premade dialogue boxes and fonts, I will be creating my own custom made dialogue boxes and find a more suitable font to better match the world setting, with the intention to make the player feel more immersed.
Player Character Designs
The majority of the character designs have been drawn from my imagination in Photoshop (Adobe Inc., 2020) using a basic tablet and pen.
Little Red Riding Hood (Grimm & Grimm, 1922b)
Taking inspiration from DnD I went for a rogue look giving her a leather cuirass, cape and hidden face (Fig. 1).
Figure 1. Red Riding Hood
The Golden Goose (Grimm & Grimm, 1922f)
I wanted to make the Golden Goose a merchant due to his interest in gold so I gave the character lots of pockets as well as a large backpack to store gold or potential items we’d want to sell (Fig. 2).
Figure 2. The Golden Goose
Seventh Dwarf (Grimm & Grimm, 1922c)
Instead of the smaller, more known cartoon version of the seven dwarfs , I made him a more realistic fantasy dwarf with a lot of muscle (Fig. 3). I gave him clothing that would suit a dwarf that spent his time mining or working in a foundry with a thick leather apron that has seen some use along with some leather gloves.
Figure 3. The seventh dwarf
Non Player Character Designs
Along with the player characters there are other npcs they may meet along the way throughout the forest. Not all of the designs are fully drawn or conceptualised yet and some of these images are in progress.
For the frog (Fig. 4), swan (Fig. 5), otter (Fig. 6) & carp (Fig. 7) I just used various reference images from google to create lifelike animal portraits.
Figure 4. Frog
Figure 5. Swan
Figure 6. Otter
Figure 7. Carp
Rapunzel (Grimm & Grimm, 1922d)
For the Rapunzel image I will draw the outside tower window with some hair just hanging over the lip to make her more mysterious and to save time in production.
Snow White (Grimm & Grimm, 1922c)
As the woman is going to be in a casket I will only have to draw her upper half holding a bouquet of flowers. In the scene her hair consists of roots growing from her scalp which will give the design an interesting look.
Insect
Large green insects with white wings (Fig. 8 and 9) that cleverly camouflage themselves as white flowers.
Figure 8 and 9. Insect
Asset List
Backgrounds
There will be a number of different locations along the journey each of which will require a background.
Locations
Swamp
Snow White glade
Rapunzel’s tower
Characters
Red Riding Hood
Golden Goose
Dwarf
Frog
Swan
Otter
Carp
Rapunzel
Snow White
Interactive imagery
Menu
Dialogue box
Sounds
These will primarily be Creative Commons sounds effects from websites such as Freesound (2020), with the possible exception of some line reading from a voice actor I know.
Music
Bubbling water
Splash (carp)
Feathers floating down
Plants wilting
Diamond sparkling
Insect flight
Insect hum
Potential Voice acting
References
Adobe Inc. (2020). Photoshop (2.2.1) [Software]. Available online: https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud.html [Accessed 14/12/2020].
Fungus Ltd (2020) Fungus (3.13.4). [Software]. Available online: https://fungusgames.com/ [Accessed 14/12/2020].
Freesound (2020) Freesound. Available online: https://freesound.org/ [Accessed 02/12/2020].
Grimm J., Grimm, W (1922a) Grimm’s fairy stories. Translated from German by unknown. New York. Cupples and Leon Company. Available online: https://www.worldoftales.com/fairy_tales/Grimm_fairy_stories.html#gsc.tab=0 [Accessed 16/12/2020].
Grimm J., Grimm, W (1922b) Little red cap in Grimm’s fairy stories. Translated from German by unknown. New York. Cupples and Leon Company. Available online: https://www.worldoftales.com/fairy_tales/Brothers_Grimm/Grimm_fairy_stories/Little_Red_Cap.html#gsc.tab=0 [Accessed 16/12/2020].
Grimm J., Grimm, W (1922c) Little Snow White in Grimm’s fairy stories. Translated from German by unknown. New York. Cupples and Leon Company. Available online: https://www.worldoftales.com/fairy_tales/Brothers_Grimm/Grimm_fairy_stories/Little_Snow_White.html#gsc.tab=0 [Accessed 16/12/2020].
Grimm J., Grimm, W (1922d) Rapunzel in Grimm’s fairy stories. Translated from German by unknown. New York. Cupples and Leon Company. Available online: https://www.worldoftales.com/fairy_tales/Brothers_Grimm/Grimm_fairy_stories/Rapunzel.html#gsc.tab=0 [Accessed 16/12/2020].
Grimm J., Grimm, W (1922e) The frog prince in Grimm’s fairy stories. Translated from German by unknown. New York. Cupples and Leon Company. Available online: https://www.worldoftales.com/fairy_tales/Brothers_Grimm/Grimm_fairy_stories/The_Frog_Prince.html#gsc.tab=0 [Accessed 16/12/2020]
.Grimm J., Grimm, W (1922f) The Golden Goose in Grimm’s fairy stories. Translated from German by unknown. New York. Cupples and Leon Company. Available online: https://www.worldoftales.com/fairy_tales/Brothers_Grimm/Grimm_fairy_stories/The_Golden_Goose.html#gsc.tab=0 [Accessed 16/12/2020]