The Savage Sea

The deep ocean is  an odd place. We know less about it than outer space. Outer space is easy compared to the deepest places on earth, there's just a lot of stuff floating around and a small robot somewhere deciding if there ever was life on Mars. I'm generalizing here. Meanwhile, the deepest parts of our oceans are teeming with lifeforms that are absolutely terrifying, beauituful and fascinating at the same time. A small clip to illustrate this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrSu65Bb9X4

I mean, look at the jellyfish at 0;40. LOOK AT IT! not even the most tripping insane/brilliant scientist could imagine that there would be a lifeform on this planet that thinks it is a disco ball. The squids are horrifying and awesome, and most of these creatures have a description that fits their appearance perfectly. Vampire Squid? right on the spot! Lovecraft would have loved this to death (no pun intended).

 Needless to say, I had an easier job than expected to design creatures that populated the places you would discover with you submarine. I had to tone down a bit on colors and weird anatomy since it had to be fascinating, and not like the 3d guy made some serious errors while rigging the models. 

The environments were a bit trickier,  the deep ocean isnt the most healthy place to stay for the adventurous diver. Most creatures dont have a skeleton since the sheer pressure of the water would crush anything with some density in its body. If we wanted to go for a uber realistic approach, I had to design suits that resemble a tank and a submarine that is reinforced with several meters of protective metals. Instead, I relied on the suspension of disbelief of the player that it is possible to freely swim around, wrestle with a octopus in a shipwreck and patch up the submarine with some bandages. Sometimes realism takes you only so far, until the point that it takes out the fun of a game or design. 

Here's a bit of art. Next time the subject will be the Player characters and your interaction with the environment. Safe sailing!

The Pike: Marvel of technology

The players will spend a lot of time in The Pike, the once legendary submarine that saved your kingdom from bankrupcy by looting shipwrecks, ruins and mysterious caves. the crew existed out of daring heroes and heroines who after their adventures became living legends.

 I wanted to show this story through the ship itself, rather than using cutscenes or a thick logbook with a wall of text. In the crew quarters you will find stuff that the previous inhabitants of the ship forgot, and small hints of their careers after they found  their fortune. Food cans with the grinning head of the ship's (now worldfamous) cook, or odd instruments that belonged to the shipwright. Outside the ship you will visit locations that were not discovered by 'the magnificent 5', but also places with empty barrels, trash and other things left by the previous explorers. I want to give the player the experience that they follow into the footsteps of heroes, and live up to them. Or go full speed ahead and abandon your crewmates who were checking out a location. Your choice.

Its obvious that after almost half a century of loyal service, the submarine is a bit more broken, smellier and rustier than when it was baptized for its first journey. Things like corks can save lives if you use them correctly and with a bit of force. And it is general knowledge that tape or bandages can repair anything if you use enough of it. Main goal of the ship is to give the players a safe haven insofar that is possible is the dangerous deep seas. Air is precious when you go diving, and the Pike will be one of the few places in the game where it is freely available. Still, you must make repairs and keep the engine running, or else you will be marooned on the bottom of the ocean...

The Journey begins

Ahoy! I'm a graduating  student from the Utrecht School of Arts. This blog will follow the process of my project, and is mostly focused on the 2d art side of the game. Here's a pitch of what the barnacles this is about: 

Submersion is about teamwork, not the cooperative kind, but teamwork nonetheless. See, here you are now, aboard a small, faulty, rickety submarine together with four of your closest friends! Water’s leaking into the doctor’s office and filling the sleeping compartments. But that’s okay, how else are we going to lower our buoyancy? Mike’s burned his hands when a steam pipe ruptured. But he’s fixing it now; smart thinking Mike. Jim’s fighting the octopus stuck to his face and Jenny is steering us away from those reefs, smashing. What are you going to do? Grapple with the tentacles coming in through the moon pool, reel in that treasure chest while we float on by, or put on that swimsuit and dive into that sunken ship? All and more can be done to delay our inevitable demise. Jolly good fun!

It will be a co-op pc videogame, played over a network. I will regularly update with artwork, thoughts about art in general and problems we had to tackle. As for now, enjoy this art dump of things that are already made! In later posts, I will give a more in depth explanation of the setting.