This week in our game development course things have been a little bit contradictory.
After the alpha was completed and our group was allowed to stay together, we ended up a little bit on a cloud and as such I am fearfull of the fact that we might have fallen a bit behind again. At the moment we are in a place that is still not so bad, but I am a little bit uneasy about the future 4 weeks. Anyways, onwards to my work this week.
This week what I have been doing is working on the loose condition splashs screen. Essentially the screen you see when you are shot dead in the game.
Since fancy mansion is not your house, and you are stealing from Otto von Fancy, the owner of the mansion, he will shoot you if he finds you.
Our place-holder art was a black-screen filled with read blood, the text “Dead” centered in the middle, and the thiefs legs sticking in from the right edge of the image (as seen below). This represented well the feel of the picture we wanted, but was poor in execution, as it should be, and didn’t really give you a view of what had killed you, what you had seen last in your life as the thief.
I expressed my dislike for the picture to our two art guys and they took what I had said to heart and started over with it, still in mind it was only placeholder so far. I was at home when the change took place, and as my drop-box resynced with the new picture I took a look at it and liked it far better. Otto stands over the thief with his shotgun ready (as seen below). Though this one was too meek in comparison to the sea of blood that could be seen in the first picture. Also, Otto was seen in his in-game pixel-form.
I liked the idea though, and so took it upon myself to iterate on the screen, adding a bit more detail, high-lights, shadow and smoke to the otherwise quite flat picture. I made his wrinkles deep-set, his baggy eyes heavy and his face splattered with red blood to make him feel more intimidating. What I ended up with was loved by our team and in the end is something I can keep iterating upon to make it something that will be in the final product of our game.
wiper92 
I am a tad confused as to the point of this post. You say you have worked on the “lose condition” screen, but then you turn around and mention how it’s the two “art guys” who are doing the ground work with creating the image? Which you then edited into what is the second version of the image, and will continue to work on? Or will the art guys finalise it?
There’s a lot of unclear openings and loose ends here. Why was the first image not good enough to work on further, if it did have the “feel” you were going for? Why do a complete 180 turn and go with the close-up view of a pissed-off Mr. Otto von Fancy? Will it be only a still image, or will the rifle smoke and other details be animated? Is there going to be any text or is what I see what I get in the end?
I do agree that changing the lose condition screen was a good idea, and I love the dramatic approach the second one gives out, even if the first one gave me a good laugh during the alpha presentation day. All I would have liked to see is more of an explanation as to why you went with certain choices, instead of reading about how someone else did a thing because they wanted to, or how blood was added because it would be more intimidating.
Why the need to be intimidating when the poor sucker’s already been shot dead?
/Addis
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