I'm Ariane, 2D artist and co-art director on Ship of Fools. 🌊
When making a game, the team spends almost more time in conception than actual production. A LOT of content is created to find the right direction, so we want to show you a little bit of what goes on behind the scenes.
Designing the boat was a particularly hard task to tackle. There were a lot of aspects to keep in mind. 🤯
- It's an incredibly small surface to hold all of the game’s combat mechanics and there are A LOT of player actions happening at once! It was a bit of a puzzle to place each component. We had to keep everything readable and make sure player movement between the cannons and pedestals was fluid.
- The boat needs to be the right size, so the player doesn't feel claustrophobic, all the while leaving enough screen space for enemies.
- It needs to look good! It's something you always have right in your face (literally always in the center of the screen), so it must be nice to look at but not too distracting.
Boat 1: The isometric rust boat 🚤
The first prototype of the game was in an isometric view. We were still exploring in what kind of universe the fools were living so the vibe of the boat was very different. The ship was old and patched with scraps. It was steampunk inspired with a post-apocalypse vibe. It’s pretty surprising looking back that the base was there even in the very first pass: Todd & Hink, cannons, holes to repair, pedestals, and ammo boxes (that became bomb boxes).
Boat 2: The cute square boat ⛵
We changed the game view to top-down for various reasons, and so the square boat appeared. I still think this version is cute and whimsical. It fits with the Fools' design… who are, well, not the most threatening sailors. We kept the colour palette but went back to the drawing board because the growing game design needed a bigger boat.
Boat 3: Baby Stormstrider appears! 🌪️
We wanted to add a bit of space for some paddle action fighting crawling mobs on the deck. At the same time, the story behind Ship of Fools was becoming more apparent, and we needed a more magical-looking boat that looked capable of navigating through a demonic storm. At this stage, it was quite clear what we wanted, so we made small variations of the same design to really nail the final Stormstrider.
Boat 4: Stormstrider_final_finalfinal
VOILÀ! Here's the boat as you know it. We worked real hard at making sure our 3D boat didn’t clash too much with the 2D look of the game, and we’re quite happy with the finished product. We still have some ideas in store to improve it even more, but therein lies the beauty and the curse of designing a game... it's never really finished!
I hope you liked reading the first concept art dive-in! Let us know what you would like to learn about in the next one. ♥
Now that the Stormstrider is ready to sail into the Forgotten Waters make sure that you...
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1286580/Ship_of_Fools/