Week 8: "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."

Welcome back partners-in-crime to Week 8 of designing Themedior! Today, my agenda is going to be a little different from usual. Instead of merely updating you on background illustrations for the side scroller, I plan to review my storyboard or outline for the dialogue section of the game.

I. Quick updates

First, let me give you a sneak peek of the dialogue illustrations and assets! For the background pieces, I am utilizing a combination of photo-bashing techniques (with a library of free stock photos from the internet and my phone camera) and traditionally hand-drawn digital art.

Here is an example of what I described above:

This image in particular is set in a Rivetton alleyway and will appear on screen right before Cynefin’s chase sequence, a.k.a. the side scroller minigame. Additionally, I finished drawing the dialogue box (see below), inspired by the design and simplicity of the player’s health bar. Although it is not quite visible in the picture below, the lower half of the box is partially transparent so players could view background and character assets more clearly.

II. Plans for the Prologue

For the prologue, I am planning to illustrate:

1. Background scenes
   1. Exiting the alleyway
   2. Pavement floor (Cynefin catches up to the red light district killer)
   3. Landscape view of killer’s lair (a cabin near the borders between Crow and Rivetton territories)
   4. Inside the cabin
   5. Underneath the cabin floors (the Tell-Tale Heart basement)
   6. Photograph of Envonne – the first clue (players will “go inside” the photo similar to Mental Canvas concepts)
2. Additional drawings:
   1. Phone pop-up (for conversations between Cynefin and the operator)
   2. Snowball the dog
   3. Full map of Esojnas

I am currently brainstorming the composition of each background scene and how to implement and design the phone pop-up asset. Below is an example of what my rough sketches typically look like. As you might notice, this is (potentially) going to be the overall layout of the “Exiting the alleyway” scene!

Thank you for reading and see you next week for more finished backgrounds!