Background Blitz - Good & Evil - Winner Announced

Started by Misj', Wed 28/10/2009 12:49:23

Previous topic - Next topic

Misj'

For the previous Blitz I originally wanted to create two complementary backgrounds depicting the same scene but with a different character: one would be good (the one that I entered) and one would be evil. But due to time constraints on my part I ended up creating only one. However, it did give me an idea for a Blitz that I hope you will like:

Goal: Create a background that has a good and an evil aspect.

Your interpretation of the goal is very open, and just to give you an idea as to how open, I've included some of the possibilities that popped up in my head only minutes after I decided upon the theme: two backgrounds of the same modern city where one if dark, dirty, depressed, and the other is bright, healthy, happy. Or a wizard's court where on the left we have the dark warlocks' area and on the right the white wizards' area. What about a wormhole on a starship's bridge through which you can see the counter-part universe.  

Anything goes as long as there's something evil and something good within the entry/entries.

Limitations: AGS compatible (although due to the special nature of this Blitz I'll also allow NintendoDS compatibility of 2x 256 x 192 pixels).

Additional: If you believe the background's functionality within a game is unclear you may provide a walkable-area-map or a textual explanation. This is not required but if available I urge people to check it out before they vote.

Voting will start somewhere the 9th of November, and entries may be entered as long as I didn't start the voting yet. Voting will be done in the usual categories:

Idea: Was it an original/creative interpretation of the theme?
Atmosphere: Was an interesting world created? - Did the scene evoke a feeling?
Design: How well the individual elements are designed, from clouds to doorknobs.
Composition: How well the elements are combined to create a pleasing whole, and lead the viewer to the points of interest.
Functionality: How well it would work as a background, with clearly defined entries and walkable areas, as well as a good viewing angle (this also includes introductionary shots of an area as long as a player character can be present in the scene).
Technique: How well it's rendered (within the chosen style!), in no way meaning the more elaborate the better.

Crimson Wizard

Interesting... yesterday I started inventing some concept for a short game and an idea for one room seem quite close to this blitz rules.
What if I have two backgrounds which show same place before and after some evil transformation? Will that match the rules?

Misj'

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Wed 28/10/2009 14:50:54What if I have two backgrounds which show same place before and after some evil transformation? Will that match the rules?
Yes :)

ThreeOhFour

Felt like a break from background touch ups and thought this might look cool.

Turns out I was wrong.



Didn't really get the colours I had in my head... and turned out nothing like I had imagined it. Then again, nothing ever does.

A bit rushed, but my competition entries always are. Still, submitting it for fun anyway  :)

Chicky


ThreeOhFour

It looked way cooler in my head, but thanks anyway :D

And yeah, pink is a pretty badass colour, despite its undeserved wussy reputation 8)

Crimson Wizard

Heh, nice, Ben.
As for me.... umm... well, it took more time than I thought  :-[ so guess I am not ready to make an entry yet.

Misj'

Quote from: Ben304 on Sun 08/11/2009 10:57:13A bit rushed, but my competition entries always are. Still, submitting it for fun anyway  :)

Ben, thank you for participating! - I think we can skip the voting, so you're declared the winner. Hopefully your Blitz will be a bit more popular.

Just for the fun of it, I decided to add some comments about your piece...

When I first saw it I had to think about these modern role-playing games where the player chooses either the path of light or the path of darkness. And I was thinking: imagine an adventure game where you can either play as a prophet for either good or evil. Same overall story, but different puzzles and interaction with people depending on whether you approach them in a benign or a malign manner. Then I thought this scene could work very well as a 'choose your path'-sceen where the player (naked?) either brings an offer to the statue or to the tree (and receives his prophet-robe?).  When you walk towards the statue you'd see a blue/gold glow from above and when you walk towards the tree you see a red glow from creaks in the rocks below.

Anyway, that's how this piece spoke to me. And I'll base some of the comments below on the way I envisioned this game that I loosely described above.

Idea: What I really like about the idea is that you decided not to take the symmetrical route. It would have been easy to take two statues of similar women/sisters (or trees) where one was evil and the other divine. Instead you chose to design good and evil separately.
Atmosphere: While I think the overall piece has atmosphere (having almost a silhouette for the foreground; particularly on this quite dark monitor), the atmosphere itself is quite dark...and I think the good could have been accentuated a bit more. I think that the glows that I mentioned above might actually do that trick accentuating some beautiful/sinister details.
Design: As you said: it's a bit rushed, so the details are still a bit unpolished. However, I think the important details are already there.
Composition: I think the main attractions stand out quite well; both having an additional source of light (which are well chosen for the good/evil-theme) to guide the player. It's a relatively simple composition, but for the idea I described above it would work perfectly well.
Functionality: I think that for a conventional screen in an adventure game this scene might not be optimal...particularly since it's technically a single-layer background; so it would be more or less a 2D game-play (for this room). However...I'm not looking at it from a conventional game-screen point of view; and I think that there are several kinds of games where this would work perfectly well.
Technique: It's not as good as some of your other pieces (like the awakener background)...but it's definitely not bad either. And as you said, it was rushed...

ThreeOhFour

Thanks Misj'

Interesting to read your thoughts on the background. Initially I had thoughts of a piece where we see an extreme low point of view (Ie, camera sitting on ground and looking upwards) at a single glowing flower, which was surrounded by evil looking trees and shapes, with only the light from the flower holding back the darkness in a single spot.

Sadly, my imagination paints a far prettier picture than my hands.

As for your comments, I nearly drew 'heavenly rays' lighting up the statue but felt it would overwhelm what I thought was a lovely understatement in a solitary candle. It would be fun to do a 'choose alignment' screen in a novel and interactive way such as this!

Seeing as nobody else entered (I felt the topic was quite an easy one to think of a concept for, so I don't feel it was the topic...) I'm glad I spent a few minutes throwing this together just so somebody made use of the topic. I will thank you for your comments, start a new competition and hope for more entries :)

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk