Requirements:
- Easy and fast to draw
- Easy to animate
- Clear and understandable
- Era accurate
- Cute and charming

Step 1) Choose a Perspective

It was fairly easy for us to choose it because since we are a small team and I’m the only in-game asset artist, we needed our assets to be reusable, so this immediately eliminated the three-point perspective layout. We could either choose a one-point perspective where we look at the scenery head on or an isometric perspective. Isometric made the most sense since we wanted a large map that is accurate to Patara.

Step 2) Decide on Line Art

We wanted a natural look but since it's a hidden object game we needed our assets to be easily readable so even though not using line art would make it look more natural we decided on using line art. But since we wanted a more natural look, we decided to avoid using line tool to create perfect lines, this would preserve the hand drawn look and make things look flawed and therefore natural. I also decided to break the line art in some places so that it would give more texture to the assets.

Step 3) Colors and Shading

This is a hidden object game so our players will be really focused on the screen and search for the objects. To prevent eye strain, we decided to avoid extremely bright and vivid colors, keeping our colors more muted but still lively. So next thing to decide as shading, we tried different shading and texturing methods where our assets were shaded more realistically and had stronger textures. But even though we liked some of the concepts we decided not to use them since it was more time consuming to create assets that way and we need a ton of assets. We also needed to reuse assets and sometimes flip them so that they can fit in different places so harsh lighting with strong contrast would look weird and unnatural when flipped. So we decided to go with simple cell shading where only one plain of the object would get a shadow and we added details and textures with hatch lines.

Step 4) Characters

We wanted our characters to be cute, charming and easy to animate. So we made chubby sort of chibi looking characters with big oval eyes and noodle arms. We argued about giving them other facial features aside from just to eyes but adding eyebrows, nose and mouth only took away from their cute childlike innocent looks.

Step 5) Companion

We needed a companion to guide us through our journey, give us hints and above all be a pal, so we started working on KronoDex. This somehow became the most dividing subject for the team (i never should’ve shown them all the concepts) no one liked the same design. After we decided on a general concept, we looked for ways to make the KronoDex part of the UI, but this came with its own challenges since we needed it to work not only on pc but also on console and mobile. After we ironed out all the kinks KronoDex took its final form!

And the quest continues….

This was the Lead Artist Batu speaking, in the next DevLog our sound designer Engin will be talking about his side of this adventure.

Thank you all so much for following our journey and supporting us, hope to see you soon! :3

Mission:
Design a Cute Little Game ːsteamhappyː

Requirements:

• Easy to code
  
• Easy to animate
  
• Everyone can play
  
• Can be turned into a series
  
• Fits to a genre but has a unique thing

Step 1. Choose a genre

This part was a piece of cake actually. I love hidden object games since the days when we had to play them with a pen and book and it meets all the requirements. How hard can it be to adapt a pencil-and-paper game into a video game, right? I guess we’ll see :)

Step 2. Give it a background story that is easy to convey

I don't feel the lack of story when I play hidden object games, but when it is there, it makes them unique. That’s why we wanted to give a little story and a lovable character for players to engage.

I wrote down 7 different concepts and read them to the team. Everyone immediately choose the same one and that was my days of thinking gone down the drain because it was my first idea and it was also my favorite too, I don't know why I bothered to write the others. We were not a teenager mutant who couldn’t control his power and made weird things happen to the city for us to find and fix. Or we were not an old witch who tries to find and hide everything related to magic before the inquisitors arrive to the village. We were a brave, silly time agent who collects modern-day objects in some ancient city because of the mess his hot arch-nemesis created. I mean, imagine a Roman emperor in his blue-jeans! That’s hilarious.

Step 3. Determine the setting

We decided to choose a real ancient site so we could use it as a reference, like the Roman Forum in Rome. So I started to dive into it, found its maps, lists of buildings and their purposes, documentaries, 3d reconstruction models, its chronology, population over time, families, what they eat, how they pee, which colors do they use… Then at some point, being able to find so much information with so little effort made me think that it was over-used. Then it hit me, why was I using a place that everyone knows and has been covered many times, when there are plenty of places we are quite familiar with but less well known? Then I turned to one of my favorite archeological sites in our country: Patara!

Patara was the port city of the Lykian civilization and the archeological site was a relatively new discovery. This was a good thing, but it quickly turned into a problem: very little had been written about it. I couldn't find what I was looking for on the internet, so I went on a book hunt -no complaints at all.

After studying the books (and smelling the pages) written by the excavation team, we were able to build a basic 3D model of the city as it was in the 2nd century. Then I studied their architecture, fauna, clothing, food, art, daily life, and examined the excavation inventories of the university that carried out the excavation, found examples of their pottery, daily tools, statues…

And the adventure continues…

This was Creative Director Nian speaking, in the next DevLog our lead artist Batu will talk about the concept and character design processes.

Thank you so much for following our development quest and being a part of it, hope to see you soon! <3