Y'all know how passionate and attached I've felt to the animals and creatures in Ultima Online. How many times I've raved on about their endearingly-cute-and-yet-completely-unaware-of-it style that we haven't seen in the new UO animals for a loooong time. Well it was that essence that I wanted to capture as I made the animals for the game we at the Helsinki studio of Digital Chocolate just released this week. May I present:
A Facebook social game for players of all ages. Simple enough for kids, but visually chic enough to appeal to adults as well. None of that in-yer-face corny humor that you will see patronizing you in other Facebook games.
One of the coolest things about our game was the feminine touch it had from the start. We started out with only 1 game designer (female), 1 artist (me, another female), 1 programmer, our producer and PM. So it was a woman behind the design and concept of the game (basing it of course on what has proven to be a hit with players already) and a woman laying down the foundations for the visual style. Later the team grew quickly as we started to realize that this is going to be good. Very good.
All in all we had 4 artists in the end and tasks were divided. I worked on all the animals, the professor dude leaning on the tutorial popups, about half of the decorations (trees, fences, jeeps, tents, ponds and some of the more delicate vegetation) (more to come obviously as we work further on the game).
However the avatars, avatar clothing, user interface, effects, other decorations, background scenery etc were made by our 3 other artists. I think the avatar system is one of the coolest ones I've seen in any of the Facebook games. For once I actually feel like customizing my character! And they did an awesome job on the user interface as well. I love how gratifying everything feels to click and interact with. Really really polished and solid!
So far everyone is having a blast decorating their safaris and it will only get better as we get more items into the game. Right now we have 20 animals but obviously we'll have more and more of those as well. Looking forward to starting to work on them!
If you're interested in giving it a whirl, go here. And if there's any feedback you'd like to give ol' Saph, you can either send me an IM here in Stratics or post it up on the game's own home page.
A Facebook social game for players of all ages. Simple enough for kids, but visually chic enough to appeal to adults as well. None of that in-yer-face corny humor that you will see patronizing you in other Facebook games.
One of the coolest things about our game was the feminine touch it had from the start. We started out with only 1 game designer (female), 1 artist (me, another female), 1 programmer, our producer and PM. So it was a woman behind the design and concept of the game (basing it of course on what has proven to be a hit with players already) and a woman laying down the foundations for the visual style. Later the team grew quickly as we started to realize that this is going to be good. Very good.
All in all we had 4 artists in the end and tasks were divided. I worked on all the animals, the professor dude leaning on the tutorial popups, about half of the decorations (trees, fences, jeeps, tents, ponds and some of the more delicate vegetation) (more to come obviously as we work further on the game).
However the avatars, avatar clothing, user interface, effects, other decorations, background scenery etc were made by our 3 other artists. I think the avatar system is one of the coolest ones I've seen in any of the Facebook games. For once I actually feel like customizing my character! And they did an awesome job on the user interface as well. I love how gratifying everything feels to click and interact with. Really really polished and solid!
So far everyone is having a blast decorating their safaris and it will only get better as we get more items into the game. Right now we have 20 animals but obviously we'll have more and more of those as well. Looking forward to starting to work on them!
If you're interested in giving it a whirl, go here. And if there's any feedback you'd like to give ol' Saph, you can either send me an IM here in Stratics or post it up on the game's own home page.
thats all
