Week 3 and 4 - Making Concepts and Getting Feedback

In Week 3, I started off making a level concept for level 1 and I made it in photoshop because I am used to the software. It also made it easier than drawing on paper because I can use simple shapes to lay out the map. I've made up a gallery of the progress on the design of the level.

Progression

Level Concept

The level concept went from being very simple with only black shapes used to outline the road to then adding colour to the level along with outposts which at the time our group called safe zones. I added walls to the outposts so that the zombies couldn't eat their enemies right away. After looking at the level concept, I adjusted the walls to fit doors/gateways for the zombies to try and breakthrough to get some brainy points. I also added road lines to the roads to make it look like a settlement location.

After designing the level concept, I decided to work on the legend of the level to help with identifying most shapes and objects found in the level. In the middle of making the legend, I've only made some icons for a zombie and a police officer as there have been some role changes in my team which has pushed back the project by a week. However, I am certain that my team will be able to proceed with this situation and move forward in the project.

UI Concept

In terms of UI, I used photoshop to make some concepts of what it would look like on mobile. I took UI inspiration from a steam game called Infectonator 3 Apocalypse which has a similar game concept because you as the player control zombies. Here is the UI that I had made for this week.

Feedback Session

After speaking with our lecture on the work we have done for the group project, we were given feedback on thinking of adding more mechanics to make the game more fun and to make someone the only concept artist who happens to be Scott. This was due to concepts being clashed and not looking alike.

In terms of the level concept, I was told to make it less grid-like which I understand why it needed to be changed as well as adding temporary basic houses instead of outlining the location of the outposts. Adding indoor to the houses to add a variety of where the enemies could be. The lecture gave advice on how to plan out UI in miro in week 3 which I will be working on by the end of week 4.

I started off planning out if scenarios by making a flow chart in the main menu, options menu and level select screen as well as in-game UI events. Here are some screenshots that I had taken during this process.