Concept Art

My initial sketches were just me throwing down ideas - I knew I wanted an androgynous faerie with a sharp nose, but not much else about them -- at this point, I was still uncertain about the style I wanted to take the game in. I also played around with a few color pallets at this point as well.

I finalized a few design elements I knew I was certain about, such as the color scheme, the hair style, the goat eyes, the outfit, etc. I was still uncertain about the style, so I experimented a bit more before coming to a conclusion.

I eventually decided on a more angular, less "cute" style for game-play, and incorporated elements such as the gaunt, boxy silhouette and the bird-like feet. I wanted the character, who at this point I named 'Cain' as a play on the canine tooth, to seem distinctly inhuman. The color scheme was originally inspired by what I think of when I think of teeth and dentists - the Crest toothpaste colors. I pushed this a bit further until I had the mostly blue color scheme with the red accent for contrast.

Personality wise, I decided that Cain was an overworked, exhausted, and irritated fae. They are distinctly aggravated by their circumstances, and want nothing more than to hurry up and get back to the Fae Realm as quickly as possible.

I am currently working on developing Cain's 3D model in ZBrush - this is my first pass on blocking. I will post more updates in further devlogs.

In regards to environment, I began planning by sketching and then finishing an illustration exploring the size disparity i wanted to showcase in the game.

This allowed me to play around with what I wanted the game to look like visually, similar to Cain's design, I wanted it to be mostly cool colors with pops of yellow and orange lighting for contrast and to move the player forward.

Following that, I decided on a final color pallet and began sketching out some props I knew I wanted to include in-game. Many of these are fairly simple toys I want to have the player encountering, though I am still debating at this point how I want to go about texturing them. The night light will be one of the main sources of light in the game, and the doll house will actually be large enough in comparison to the player character that they will be able to navigate through it.

The whole game takes place in a single room, but this feels incredibly vast since the player character is so small. The game begins behind the toybox where Cain gets stuck after entering the window and falling. The player will need to navigate Cain throughout the child's bedroom - from behind the toybox, through the dollhouse, around the shelves, along the window sill, over the wardrobe, to the side table, and eventually to the tooth under the child's pillow!

The first level, however, will consist largely of the toybox and dollhouse for blocking purposes.

This is a simple mock-up of the room made in Maya.

This is another mock-up, but this one for size comparison - the cylinder in the red circle represents the player character. This view takes place behind the toybox, where Cain gets stuck and has to traverse. This section will function as a small tutorial, teaching the player how to jump, climb, and push items to solve simple puzzles.

As far as development goes, that is where I am currently! Thank you for reading, and I hope to post more updates for you in the future.