Releasing a game that allows the player to be as creative as they want is challenging, especially when you provide over 3000 assets. Liesa and IJke offer a retrospective on two and a half years of art development with a highly creative player base in mind. The lecture starts with the lessons learned from Planet Coaster and how they were taken on board for Planet Zoo. It’s hugely important to anticipate the needs of players and the concept stage is used to identify useful and versatile assets. We take a look at the popularity of certain types of assets, using telemetry from the live game. We also take a look at the unconventional contribution our concept artists made. They were integral to the look and feel of the game, and they used their knowledge of the assets to create in-game buildings and scenery. Our concept artists received a new responsibility in the production pipeline; designing and playing with the in-game assets. Having our concept artists play and build in-game gave us a lot of strong assets, and an insight into which assets were missing. Finally, we take a look at balancing the game to account for multiple player types. Our game is popular with building and management players. Some like to build a beautiful zoo, and some like to build a functional zoo. Those players have different expectations and we look at which solutions we found to satisfy both.

Takeaway:

• Concepting for a highly creative player base – how to anticipate their wants and needs and balancing hero assets vs versatility. Retrospective on where we went right or wrong + player telemetry.
• Taking concept to the next level – Concept artists who play the game contribute more to its progress and design. We look at how they have made an impact on the game post-concept.
• Balancing scenery for creative players versus pure management players – different players have different expectations, what solutions did we find to manage both?

This session will detail the purpose of game Art Bibles, the types of fields that need to be covered & ways to best structure this information for the various target audiences. This would include ensuring there is a clear understanding & alignment of your game's core purpose & razor and how these subsequently influence / waterfall down through narrative framing, game tone, art pillars, establishing visual signatures, world-building, scene-setting and practical applications of the principals & elements of art.

Takeaway:

• The purposes that a game Art Bible serves
• What to include & why
• How to tailor the contents to you suit your project

This session is about how we brought clumsy, colorful beans to life and got them to compete in the world's greatest gameshow. We will cover visdev-aspects, ideas that didn't make into the final game, how we came up with the general tone and energy of the FallGuys-Universe, and will talk about why we think that diversity makes us and our art stronger. 

Takeaway:

• Insights on the creation of FallGuys: Ultimate Knockout
• Best Practices, Workflow and never seen art 
• What we learned after being the most downloaded PS+Game ever. 

Making your work look dynamic but believable is always tricky problem to solve when creating characters for games. They need to be cohesive within their own world, but also relatable to the player so that they can build a meaningful connection with them. In this talk, we will be discussing various tips, practices and sources for taking your model beyond their concept art by developing our fundamental knowledge of garment creation, pattern, visual depth and power, branding and more.

Takeaway:

• A further understanding of the deeper fundamentals when creating/designing characters for games
• Practical theory on how to use colour to add depth to the visuals of a character
• How to apply them effectively for a cohesive powerful look