With the release of Bilkins' Folly fast approaching, I wanted to take a bit of time to sit back and reflect on some of the early design and art decisions that led to this point.
Why pixel art?
I originally came into game dev from an illustration perspective, transitioning over to pixelart on the first game I worked on - Wildfire.
From an artistic point of view, the choice of pixel art is something that happens super early on. In fact, the graphics were decided even before I'd started working on Bilkins' Folly as a conceptual game.
Not long after completing work on Wildfire, I was playing around with different styles and just generally trying to improve my artistic ability. I'd found a colour palette that struck me, and decided to try drawing a few different scenes using those colours. One of the throwaway images that I created was of a boy standing on a cliff with his dog, overlooking the sea. I didn't know it at the time, but that image would form the basis for the entirety of Bilkins' Folly game art.
Once I had it in my head to make another game and I started prototyping ideas, I tested out a few different art styles. From 8bit graphics all the way through to the illustrative-style that I employed in my picture book The Lonely Tower. After a bit, I came back to that scene of the boy on the cliff, and everything clicked into place.
I didn't know it at the time, but this image would prove impactful...
World design
I think it's safe to say that I'm a visual thinker. More often than not, I'll design everything with paper and pencil, trying to get as far from a computer as possible. I find this is particularly helpful when designing the different islands of Bilkins' Folly.
The process would usually look something like this. Find the biggest sketchbook I can, jump in the car and drive to an isolated beach, setting up a spot to work. There's something about drawing near the ocean that I absolutely love, and I tap into this as best I can.
2 hours to sketch it... 200 hours to build the damn thing!
Once I have my island sketched out, in my head wandering around as mini Percy exploring this greyscale outline, I then return home and set about the painstaking process of building it into the pixelated version that the player gets to see, using a combination of giant tilemaps (reusable blocks of pixels) and individual art pieces.
You'll see a lot of beaches in Bilkins' Folly. They're actually stitched together from a single giant tilemap. I wasn't even sure this'd be possible when first starting!
Buildings on the other hand are individually drawn.
Percy and Drayton's Story
One of the early game choices centred around Percy's backstory and what sort of character he'd be. Originally, I considered the idea of a customisable player character, where you could change different aspects such as name, skin tone, clothing and background. However, as the game's story began to take form, it became clear that Percy was a distinctly defined character with his own personality, desires and fears. This was no longer just a treasure hunting game, but a full-fledged narrative tale and it needed a protagonist who could fit that bill.
Our hero of the story... standing with his human!
As I continued to write the story and dialogue interactions, it became clear that having a distinct personality for Percy and Drayton was the right choice in a game like this.
Cheers
So there ya go, a bit of insight into how things started. If you've made it this far, I'd like to say thanks for showing an interest in Bilkins' Folly. The next time I make an entry like this, it'll be post-release. I'm simultaneously thrilled and terrified!
What I'm most looking forward to though is hearing from player's experiences and reading their thoughts once beating the game - using spoiler tags of course!
See you then!
:)
