Play the Game here: EXCALAVENTURE
Team Size: 3 | Timeline: Jan 17th - Jan 31st
This was really fun to work on as this is a Game Jam submission for Pirate Software - Game Jam 16. The theme of this jam was "You are the Weapon". In this project, I worked as the sole artist (3D and UI). I worked along side Ryan Millen and James Bond (amazing engineers, check them out!). Game Jams all in all are fun because its an opportunity to learn new things and work efficiently with multidisciplinary teams.
Summary of Game
“Excalaventure” is a simple Action-Adventure game where the player assumes control of the legendary sword Excalibur, which after seeing countless would-be rulers fail the simple task of extracting the Sword from the Stone, decides to claim the throne for itself.
Gameplay
The player is the legendary sword Excalibur. Jumping through the environment, always landing pointy end down, doing the quest no one else could. The player moves through stages of enemies, landing on them to defeat them, trying to reach the castle. Once it has reached the castle Excalibur assumes its role as King.
Art Direction
I wanted to go for a low poly art style for the game since it is a quick way to pump out assets and it looks pretty neat. This also minimizes the texturing needed on the models. For the UI, I took inspiration from Stephen Universe backgrounds and how they use light pastel colors and diamond shapes to show detail. I also wanted to go for a flat vector look so it doesn't distract too much.
I also wanted to make sure the color schemes used in the world help make the sword stand out. Using a lighter tan and yellow color contrasted well with the environment and ensured clear visibility improving player experience. Below are some gameplay shots!
Game Over and Paused Screens! They have the same style but a different colors. Game Over has a red vignette to make it clear that it is indeed... Game Over...
The "HP Bar" was fun to design. This idea blossomed when Ryan wanted to experiment with the sword breaking when its game over. So I wanted to reflect that idea into the design.
We decided to group UV’s together so that we can reduce the # of materials being rendered optimizing the games performance and improving the players experience. So almost all models were strategically grouped, the picture above are all rocks or models used in the cave level. The nice thing about low poly UV's is that they don't necessarily require detailed textures hence they are just solid colors here.
Models like Enemies or the Excalibur Sword got their own UV's though.
Here are two animations for 2/3 of the enemies. I chose to showcase the idle animations since they are the ones you see first. Each enemy had an Idle, Walk, and Attack animation. Death animations were done in engine by squishing the Z axis. It was also an opportunity to utilize VFX to sell the impact. I made a bendy bone rig for both of them as it seems to fit their movement. I wanted to go for a squishy feel so they both feel alive in the game world.
Here are some videos/pictures of the early stages of development. Videos above are quick version of basic movement done by Ryan. Below are enemy interaction by James. The game has come a long way and we ensured to keep the scope manageable especially since we had 2 weeks to complete it. The GDD is on the itch.io page and you can also view the development timeline there if interested!
Blocking out the colors to see what they can potentially look like is useful for seeing what works. Later in development, we decided to change the castle colors from reds/orange to purple/tan. This helped with more distinguished colors for the levels as the previous colors were too close to the cave colors. It was important to see the models together at some point to help see if things mesh well with one another and if things are scaled properly.
And finally... It culminated to this!
Thank You for Viewing!