Main Character Design
This is the final agreed design outcome for the Main Character Design. The following details below describe the design process and illustrate iteration cycles taken to create and improve the design of the player character.
Designer: Amelia Rowhani
Final Character Design
Below is a concise documentation of the entire design process for this character. See below for Sprint 1 details.
Figure 1: Character Design Process Summary
Research was conducted to gain inspiration into potential player designs based upon the theme of Norse mythology as well as to determine an appropriate helmet, clothing and beard style.
Refer to the following document for Inspiration and Research: Character Design Inspiration and Research
See Character Design Initial Inspiration for more preliminary team examples and Pixel Art Inspirations for initial examples of similar-themed game designs.
Initially I sketched several potential character designs, focussing on the beard and helmet style in order to identify the design theme that best suited the intended game purpose and overall art style. Inspiration derived from research was incorporated into the sketches and preliminary digital designs.
Figure 2: Initial Character Design Sketches
Figure 3: Initial Helmet Design Sketches
An initial set of preliminary 32 x 32 pixel designs were created on Adobe Photoshop to explore potential character aspects that could be incorporated into the final design. This included the design of a Viking helmet and several diverse beard and headgear styles. After initial discussion with designers and users, it was evaluated that the design direction should better suit a more detailed, pixel art theme. Therefore, through further iterations, I progressively enhanced colour and shading and applied a black outline to the character, which was found to create greater depth in the design and better suit the well-known 2D pixel art game theme.
Figure 4: Preliminary Character Designs
Following this, a more improved overall character style was created, with a more proportional and balanced body shape and helmet design. This was done by designing 64 x 64 pixel characters and better integrating the black outline and pixel art theme. I experimented with various helmet colours and shapes, including long/short horns and ivory metal/gold metal colour choices as well as short/long legs. This allowed for a greater range of potential design styles to be further explored and led to a more refined initial character.
Figure 5: Initial Character Designs
From initial designs, I was able to better integrate the theme of Norse mythology and the pixel art style into the design of the character. From discussions with other designers, I decided to further refine and improve on the previous iteration of the character. Therefore, I was able to design a more realistic face that better resembled that of a Norse warrior. A longer and more defined beard style and a better shaped helmet design was produced, with shading and outlining allowing for a more realistic, dimensional look and feel. By adding more detail to the character's clothing and incorporating the clothing style inspirations gathered through research, I was able to design more realistic steel armour, a sash, animal fur clothing and boots. This led to a more defined and completed character style and design.
Figure 6: Improved Character Design
Preliminary user testing was conducted in the early stages of character design in order to identify the most suitable design to proceed with for Sprint 1. This was predominantly done through an online survey, conducted with users that may be in the target audience of players of the game, mainly members of the DECO2800 Studio. This was critical in determining what design best complemented the intended game theme and which design the users most preferred, and thus allowed for a more defined asset art style (See Asset Art Style) and colour scheme (See Colour Scheme) to consequently be created, largely based on the design of the chosen character. This made the way for the creation of more consistent game assets and more fitting designs.
Although short, the online survey provided meaningful feedback for evaluation. It consisted of two main questions that directly asked the users which design they believed best aligned with the 2-dimensional pixel art, Norse mythology-themed game. The first question showcased three main potential designs, each created by a different designer, Design A by Amelia Rowhani (see #Refined Design below), Design B by Carlos Liu (see Character Design Initial Concepts#Simple Pixel Art Warrior) and Design C, by Jonathan Tang (see Character Design Initial Concepts#Realistic Pixel Art). This was followed by a question that asked for relevant feedback and comments based on the design the user most preferred. Due to a lack of initial time in Sprint 1, further user testing must be conducted in ongoing sprints to ensure user needs and expectations are correctly met in the design and development of suitable and engaging assets and digital art.
Results from the user testing showed a preference towards Design A (by Amelia Rowhani, see figure 7 below), which was agreed to be chosen as the final design for Sprint 1. The design was commented as best aligning with the art style of the game as it was the most consistent, with the more simple, pixelated art theme that many users associated pixel games with. It also captured the overall art style in a better light as compared with the other designs. It was agreed, that while Design C (see Character Design Initial Concepts#Realistic Pixel Art) was a good design and very detailed, it aligned less with the overall game design and was slightly too realistic for the game's pixel art theme. Users commented that they liked the bigger head and smaller body size of Design A and found it overall, a pleasing fit. Some suggestions made, including improving the character's helmet design, will be considered in the next iteration.
Figure 7: Character Design User Testing Question 1 Results
Upon further user evaluation, a refined design was created to better incorporate feedback from other designers and better suit the game style. It was determined that a shorter character would complement well with the game and therefore I decided to refine the previous iteration to create a shorter body for the character. I also refined the arm and hand positioning to suit the new body shape and further improved on the design of the helmet, making the horns shorter to appear more realistic. I also refined the character's clothing and incorporated long sleeves and more defined boots, that faced forwards, to allow for a more cohesive and balanced design overall.
Figure 8: Refined Character Design
From the final refined character design, I was able to design four-way directional frames, to form the basis for sprite animations. This included the design of the right, left, front and back idle profiles, as follows.
From this, character frames and animations were created. I started by initially designing the left and right sideways walking animation sprites, as illustrated below. This consisted of me designing 4 frames for each sideways-walking direction. See Main Character Animation Frames for more details.
User testing was conducted in Sprint 2 to evaluate the main character's design as well as the game's overall art style from Sprint 1 and to see whether it aligned to the game theme and style. Testing was also conducted to gather feedback into potential changes and refinements to the character's design. The testing plan was as follows, conducted with potential game users outside of the DECO2800 Studio.
Testing Approach:
- Explain game’s backstory and setting to tester, showing them the basic running game in action so users can understand the game theme and purpose.
- Show them the Sprint 1 main character design. Also show users the art style guidelines in order for them to understand the general art direction and aesthetic that the studio is aiming for.
- Interview with tester showing designs. An interview was chosen to gather rich qualitative data from users and to incorporate appropriate follow-up and open-ended questions that will help provide accurate and realistic data into how designs can be potentially improved and refined in future sprints. This interview will also form as a semi-codesign questionnaire, asking users what they think of the designs and if they have any ideas for how they can be refined and potential features or new designs that can be added to create a more user-friendly and aesthetically-pleasing game.
- Ask tester if they have any questions about the test or the game
- Thank the tester for their time and input
Testing Questions: Character Design
- What do you think of the character’s art style?
- What do you think the character’s theme and identity represent?
- How well do you think the character’s design aligns with this theme?
- What do you think of the character’s body shape and face design?
- Do you prefer a particular style?
- Does the character’s appearance correlate well with a Norse mythology theme game?
- Why/why not?
- What changes would you make to the design?
- What features of the design do you like?
- What do you dislike about the character’s design?
- What do you think about the character’s colour choices?
- How would you refine this?
- What features would you like to see added to the character?
- Please describe how well the character design correlates with the overall art style of the game.
Art Style and Colour Scheme
- What do you think of the overall art style of the game?
- Please describe the appropriateness of the colour scheme chosen.
- How consistent do you feel the current art style is with the game’s theme and purpose?
- Do you have any suggestions for the colour scheme or the game’s art style in general?
- Do you have any suggestions for the game and its design in general?
Results
For the most part, user testing results found that users were happy with the main character design. Users were able to quickly and easily discern the character to be from the Vikings Age, due to its long orange beard, helmet horns and steel armour. The design was described to 'mesh well' with the game and it was described as being very detailed but clear enough to see when playing the game. "I think it complements the game and it looks like it fits in, and it doesn’t stick out – it matches and doesn’t clash with the game so that’s why I’d think its already part of the game". "It looks pretty detailed which is really nice and the face stands out because of the colours because the rest of its really dark and the face pops out with the orange beard. I don’t see any negatives. I like how detailed the clothes is with the pixels and the shine on the metals." "I like how the character looks brave and strong and gives off a warrior feel, it's very Viking and I think it matches the game design well".
Users suggested some slight changes to the main character but commented that they felt the character did not require any major changes, many were happy to leave the design as is. Suggestions included looking at changing the character's clothing colour slightly to add more variation, changing the character's pants to make it not blend in with the boots and also changing the boot colour and adding more armour shading, "but not too different from what it is as that would become too busy". Another user suggested adding mouth movements to the character during dialogue text in the game and maybe looking at experimenting with some different belt styles.
In regard to the game colour scheme and art style, users felt that the colour choices were mostly appropriate and complemented the game well. Some users questioned the bright purple tones and whether these correlated with the consistent dark brown and neutral earth theme. Suggestions included adding more shading, texture and tone to the assets in general. "Maybe adding some more pops of colour for dimension – a clear pathway to guide where you’re going. But it’s mostly good already." Overall, user testing and evaluation uncovered some useful insights into the art direction for the game. It also confirmed the design of the main character and allowed more focus to be placed on Map Design for Sprint 2 (see Map Assets) as well as the overall art style and colour scheme of the game.