Inspiration
The mood board (Fig. 1) gives some insight into what I’m currently going for: large cave areas deep under a desert filled with the ancient ruins of a lost civilization.
Figure 1. Environment mood board
Design
Although figure 2 is just a rough sketch it is an attempt at a world map concept with different areas represented by key visuals such as the large tree on the left or the upside down mushrooms.
Some of the potential areas past the demo level could include a ruin overtaken by vines and plants, full of environmental hazards on the middle left. On the top left, a mushroom area suspended from the cave ceiling with large drop hazards between platforms. Towards the bottom right a largely water based area with ruins that interact with flowing water to create environmental puzzles.
While there are a lot of different ideas in the concept sketch (fig 2) the demo would only include the one area consisting of a cave and ancient structures.
Figure 2. Environment concept art
Feedback
From the feedback I got a lot of people quite liked the environment sketch and said that the monochromatic colour scheme works really well. This was quite encouraging as a big part of the whole game the player will be without colour, so the environments, player and enemy have to be coloured in a way that is easy to make out.
By far, the most positive response about the world was; “Through these concepts you can clearly see the atmosphere that will be created in the game. It evokes a calm yet unsettling aesthetic that makes you want to find out more about what this world holds. Knowing that colour plays an important role in the story you feel intrigued by the monochromatic imagery and feel compelled to navigate through the story to uncover the hidden colours of this greyscale game.”
References
Harenburg J. (2014) Temple of the Inscriptions, Palenque. Available online: [https://www.ancient.eu/image/3097/temple-of-the-inscriptions-palenque/ [Accessed 07/12/2020].
Iruegas D. (2014) Mayan architecture in Yucatan. Available online: https://blog.xcaret.com/en/mayan-architecture-in-yucatan/ [Accessed 07/12/2020].
Kornei K. (2019) How stalagmites get the shapes. The New York Times, Internet edition. 27 November. Available online: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/27/science/stalagmites-physics-caves.html [Accessed 07/12/2020].
‘Stalactite’ (2020) Wikipedia. Available online: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalactite [Accessed 07/12/2020].
Team Cherry (2017) Hollow Knight [Video game].Team Cherry. Available online: https://www.gog.com/game/hollow_knight [Accessed 07/12/2020].
Treyratcliff (2013) Incredible secret cave-chamber I just found in the desert – Valley of Fire. EarthPorn. Available online: https://www.reddit.com/r/EarthPorn/comments/1ky2lr/incredible_secret_cavechamber_i_just_found_in_the/ [Accessed 07/12/2020].