Artwork

The artwork used in the game was unorthodox. In those days, floppy disks were the only distribution medium available, and artwork quickly filled up floppies. To make matters worse, the user community was divided between the color haves and the black-and-white have-nots; in order to sell, the game had to satisfy both groups. Moreover, I needed 156 different images, one for each variable. My solution was to break each image up into a black-and-white bitmap and a color overlay. The color overlay was built up out of triangles; I had to build a special tool for my artist to specify the triangles and their colors. The system worked: The average image required only about 60K of floppy space. Black-and-white images looked good, and so did the color images.

The art style was especially unorthodox. I was dissatisfied with the ultra-realistic style so common in computer games; I wanted something deliberately artistic in intent. For this work, I chose Amanda Goodenough, the creator of such HyperCard classics as Inigo Gets Out and Your Faithful Camel. Amanda's clean, sweet style was just what I wanted, and she delivered a lovely set of images for the game. A few of my favorites are found in Figure 25.4.

25.4. A few of my favorite designs.

graphics/25fig04.gif

As you can see, Amanda is an artist with strong vision and simplicity of line. In choosing her, I made a conscious decision that I wanted an artist, not an illustrator. I encouraged her to put her soul into the work, and she responded brilliantly. Hiring Amanda to create the artwork was one of the best decisions I made for the project. Most games these days seem to be illustrated by talented illustrators or artists who are not given any freedom. These people know their job; present them with your design goals and let them apply their creativity!

LESSON 83

Decide whether to hire an artist or an illustrator.



Chris Crawford on Game Design
Chris Crawford on Game Design
ISBN: 0131460994
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 248

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