Level Design | Photoshop
Date: 30th August, 2018
Techniques: Shading, Coloring, Drawing, Character Making, Environment Assets
Buzoku - Level 1
Buzoku's name was inspired from The Tribe or "Bu-zo-ku" in Japanese. Buzoku is about Buzo who is trying to find his place in the modern world. Buzo doesn't know any human language to communicate, so we have to point-and-click towards the environment to clear the level.
Love you to bits and Tiny Thief
Buzoku's Art was inspired from 2 games in particular: Love you to bits & Tiny Thief. Both games have a very unique color palette, and because they are cartoony, they can help capture the attention of a player really quickly. Not to mention, these games can have severe impact psychologically since no one expects something serious, just like how people don't expect humor from action games.
Love you to bits has a very interesting level design because of it's futuristic setting. This game helps create fictional mechanics which very well defies the laws of physics, which was something I wanted to explore.
The simple feedback of this game invokes strong emotions, especially in a dystopian setting. Games like these particularly interest me because of this very reason. When a game triggers emotion at an unexpected time, it causes the biggest effect.
Similarly, Tiny Thief's level design is medieval making it familiar from the start. The game's very similarity makes gameplay flow properly. The UI elements itself make the game pop-out more, and makes the control simple and easy to use.
Just like Love you to bits, the contrasting elements and visual feedback make more compelling levels. By keeping the setting medieval and utilizing fictional assets, the complimentary atmosphere makes the level so much more enticing.
