We do a lot of graphics for our game: we have cutscenes, character icons, business icons, a map, a solution screen, and more. Today we will tell you about the process of making graphics, the difficulties of development, and our criteria.
Character Portraits
Characters are an important part of our game, so we pay special attention to them.
Before we create a portrait of a character, we think about his character, his features, his visual characteristics and his role in the plot. We choose references from games and movies, make many sketches with different options for images and finally choose what best fits his image.
Once we decide on the character's image, we experiment with small visual details: jewellery, clothing, tattoos, and more.
In the final phase, we solicit feedback from the team: We ask team members if they remember the character, what design elements are most striking, what can be improved, what's missing, and so on. We make the final changes and add the portraits to the game.
Cutscenes
When creating cutscenes, we take inspiration from classic crime films like Ozark or Breaking Bad as well as noir or similar games: for example, This is the Police.
When creating cutscenes, we spend most of our time creating stylish and memorable scenes, compositions and images. First, we prepare the text, compose the plot, design a storyboard; then we draw the first versions of the cutscenes and insert them into the game after the improvements. Maybe the cutscenes are the most difficult part of the artistic development because of the variability and the additional implementation in the engine.
Icons
In a game from the genre of strategic management, you can not do without many small but very important icons on the screen.
When designing icons, the main thing is that they are easy to read in small sizes, which makes it difficult to add a lot of details.
Despite this (and maybe because of this), icons are the easiest element to produce art. In the screenshot below, you can see the options we chose from for each icon.
