Damian Street: Games Art 2024 - 25

Reflective Statement Overall, I had a lot of fun working together with my teammates! It was a great experience combining our ideas and even though we couldn't include everything in our final version, I'm super happy with the end product. I think the thing I found most difficult was coding the game. I struggled a lot when it to finding the solutions to my errors. I wish I gave myself a lot more time to focus on the code! I'm proud that I managed to get the gif Faye animated at the end. I think the main thing I need to is give myself more time for error

These are my portfolios: Arstation:  https://www.artstation.com/jekkalou Indeed:  https://profile.indeed.com/?hl=en_GB&co=GB&from=gnav-homepage Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jekkilu/ Writing an artist statement This is a short piece of writing that introduces you work and practice and wider intellectual concerns. Here are some notes I made as well as my artist statement! Highlight Ideas, Motivations and Process Creation Process: Gather references, ideas using Pinterest + mind maps + studies if necessary Thumbnailing/ Design iterations Clean-up /posed drawing of final thumbnail Colours As an aspiring concept artist, I seek to improve my skills at any given moment and strive to improve my understanding of many techniques and software. Majority of my character concepts explore various high fantasy genres commonly association with the game dungeons and dragons. I have become very familiar with this setting and am excited to do some more work for it. I'm willing to ...

Sprites   Background Monster Problem Logo

I unfortunately hadn't been able to keep up with my blog posts so I compiled a list of examples where I have collaborated with my team. These aren't in order. Script Since I had a lot of issues with grammar and punctuation in our game feedback, I went over it and Sam had offered to spell check my coding. I sent it to them in a word document so they could do some corrections. Animation Troubles I had some trouble trying to implement an animation. I had Faye sent me a bunch of different file types until we found one that worked. Pattern's Patient Tree Today, was the last day to finish the project, so I wanted to make I had everything ready. I remembered that Katie had an extension so I asked them if they'd be able to finish their patient story/ script before the deadline. They sent me some screenshots of their patient tree and a pdf to work from. UI Difficulties I had a lot of issues with the games UI and found it difficult to layout the pause screen the way we wanted it ...

Before this, I had spent some time coding in the Gaping's story. At this point all the stories were complete aside from The Patterns! Here is the Feedback we were given. It's a little hard to see so I'll write out the key parts here: Pros: Removal of mask is a cute and nice metaphor Very engaging, makes you want to "win" Easy to form attachments to characters Character designs are very fun and unique, expressions are clear, cohesive across all assets Unique character designs that represent that characters struggles pretty well Cons: There are some basic spelling and grammar mistakes. Give the first character another way to be provoked more so it lines up with the rest Add a new font Make the script a bit more readable so it's easier to understand what is happening Meeting We had a team meeting to discuss the feedback given. Date:  9/05/25 In Attendance:  Me, Sam, Faye, Katie, Jake Meeting Agenda & My Role: To discuss the feedback we got on our game. Decis...

Daniel Orive Who is your chosen role-model in the Games industry The person I have chosen is an the co founder and head of art at Dardo Studios, Daniel Orive. The reason I have chosen this artist, is due to his large amount of experience and background. He did some great concept art and 3D models for a game I enjoy called League of Legends (Riot Games, 2009). His portfolio can be found on art station at https://www.artstation.com/danielorive/profile . I aspire to be a concept artist and would love to have the chance to work on the games I enjoy playing. This is what led me to Daniel Orive. I think learning his thought process on the concepts he creates will offer me a lot of great advice and considerations to help me build up my portfolio.  Identify the job role and responsibilities of your Games Artist Role Model? Daniel Orive has worked many jobs in the games artist industry. He's a concept artist, character artist and most recently, art director. These roles, though different fr...

Meeting Date:  21/03/25 In Attendance:  Me, Sam and Faye Meeting Agenda & My Role:  To check up on where everyone is at and discuss our next steps. Decisions and/or Actions & Deadlines:  I showed the progress I've made with coding the game. We discussed how we wanted the pause screen to look. I suggested using a notebook with the pause menu options on the left side and patient info on the right side. Sam started to work on this in more detail and we offered feedback throughout.  Reflections: I need to catch up on a lot of my assets. Currently, I am waiting for sprites, ui and background art from my teammates so it isn't worth it at this stage to continue focussing on ren'py. Right now I need to put my focus on creating my own sprites and thumbnail some environment art and ui designs.

I decided to revisit my patient question tree! I thought that some of the choices were too similar and it was difficult to tell which one was better. Some of these choices went down similar routes where the only difference was that the 'worse' option would offer less conversation from the patient. I changed the middle section and right section of the tree so there was more variety in the choices and replies. Here are the screenshots of the changes! Middle Tree Right Tree

Trigger Warning Screen We haven't designed the final design for this screen but I wanted to get the code in ready to test if it worked. For this test, I created a placeholder trigger warning image to use. Here is the code I used to create the screen. During this, I encountered many problems when it came to viewing the screen in game. The code above is designed to display the image using the dissolve transition. It will pause for 8 seconds before returning to the main menu screen. When the screen was displayed, it was a black screen and my placeholder wasn't there. This showed me that the code was working but there was an issue with the image. I recreated this and replaced it with a hound sprite and it worked with no issues. After a while of basic troubleshooting, I realised that it had an issue with the size of the image. I changed it to be the same size as the hound file and it worked. The Doctor Using the dialogue tree I made, I coded out the doctors story with some minor cha...

Team Meeting Date:  14/03/25 In Attendance:  Me, Faye, Sam, Katie Meeting Agenda and My Role: I had recently added the game to our joint onedrive to allow my teammates to access it. This allowed me to show them my current progress so far so we could discuss changes and future steps. Decisions and/or Actions & Deadlines: We decided that it's easier to keep the character sprites in the middle of the screen rather then move them to the left. Bigger sprites like the hound and the jester look and fit better in the middle. This also helps us when it comes to the backgrounds as we won't have to overcomplicate them too much. I brought up the previous idea of having the backgrounds monochrome in the characters associated colour similar to a lot of backgrounds in Hollow Knight. This has led me to ask my team if they thought it would be a good idea for me to add Hollow Knight to out benchmark game and they said that sounded good! For character transitions, Sam suggested using a bounc...

My teammate Faye had posted an image of a tree filled with questions tailored to there characters that consisted of good, bad and neutral options. I liked this idea and created a similar tree for my own patient. I did some prior research on PTSD and common treatment methods. A lot of these methods involved getting the patient to revisit the traumatic memory which is what I've tried to do here. Here are some close ups to help see the tree more clearly. Left Tree Middle Tree Right Tree

Team Meeting Date:  31/01/25 In Attendance:  Me, Sam and Faye Meeting Agenda & My Role:  To discuss the script and backstories Decisions and/or Actions & Deadlines:  We made the decision to make sure we finish our individual patient backstories by next week so we will be able to finalise the script. Since Jake and Katie are not in attendance, we will let them know via discord. Sam suggested that in the bad ending, the patients could become more monstrous to show how much they're struggling. Discussed having a pop up trigger warning as this topic is heavy and could upset some players. Reflections: Overall, this meeting went pretty well, I have a pretty good idea of my patient story already so I know that I'll be able to make the deadline. I plan to figure out how to make a splash screen in Ren'py so I can add in a functional trigger warning screen. Age Ratings Our target audience for this game, is young teens aged 14+. For this, I looked up the PEGI ratings to...

The patient I am designing for our visual novel, suffers from PTSD. Specifically relating to medical distress from a severe illness they had as a child. To be able to accurately portray this, I need to do a lot of research into the topic. Medical PTSD and Medical Trauma Medical PTSD is caused by trauma from life threatening illnesses, medical malpractice, traumatic birth, severe paediatric illnesses etc.  Medical trauma occurs in a medical setting. It is not an official diagnosis but it can lead to conditions like PTSD, anxiety, depression or chronic pain. Medical trauma doesn't always stem from the result of a treatment/ procedure going wrong, it can also be a response to a routine diagnosis, operation or treatment. Symptoms Symptoms of PTSD include: Fear of medical settings or medical staff Physical sensations, such as pain, sweating, feeling sick or discomfort Repetitive negative thoughts about your experience Avoidance or emotional numbing Irritability Feelings of depression an...

Design Rights  In the UK, designs are protected by 3 legal rights which are:  Unregistered Design Rights Registered Design Rights Artistic Copyright Unregistered design rights and copyright arise automatically and provide exclusive rights against copying. There are limitations on these rights so it's always best to register them where possible. Design registration gives the owner monopoly on their product design for a limited period to stop others from making, using or selling a product to which the design has been applied. Registered Designs Design rights protect the appearance of a product. This can be the whole or part of a product resulting from the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture or materials. Design rights are a tool for publishers and developers for protecting the appearance of different parts of the game, from game character through to UI,  the backgrounds in gaming environments and even some more functional aspects of gameplay. Design Law protects both R...

Copyright Protection in Gaming What is protected? What isn't? In games, copyright covers the stories created, the character designs, imagined environment designs, geographical locations, music, graphics and the software source code. It can protect the entire game if it's registered under the category of audio-visual or literary work. Copyright protects how the ideas are expressed and not the ideas themself. No game ideas are protected by copyright until they are fixed in an expressive medium like a code, print or saved art file. This includes concept art, 3D models and animations, visual and audio effects, music compositions and code containing creative expression. There are a few limitations to copyright in gaming. You cannot copyright gameplay mechanics, ideas, functional elements e.g. health bars. Short phrases and titles also lack enough originality to be protected by copyright.  What benefit is there? The benefit to copyright protection is that it prevents other people usi...

Date: 13/12/24 In Attendance: Me, Sam, Faye, Katie Meeting Agenda & My Role: To discuss assets, the script and plans over Christmas. Decisions and/or Actions & Deadlines: We made the decision to get rid of the 'neutral ending' we originally planned as we felt it wasn't necessary and this will help lessen the work load. We discussed what happens in each ending with the therapist befriending and continuing to assist the patients in the good ending, and the patients leaving in the bad ending. We will have the patients expressions reflect the ending the player is currently working towards (this is to help the players realise how much of an impact their words can have on an individual). We all agreed to have a meeting over Christmas to update Jake with the decisions we've made and to get his input. For the script, we discussed having two general questions that all patients will answer as well as a more specific question. We made a few changes to our asset list to ...

Date: 29/11/24 In Attendance: Me, Sam, Faye Meeting Agenda & My Role: To discuss contracts and create a sound brief Decisions and/or Actions & Deadlines: We made a start on the sound brief and agreed to use Beepbox to create our own music for the game. We discussed each of us creating simple tunes for each patient. We don't plan to make a lot of our assets until after Christmas so we'll update the sound brief over the course of this project with the assets we make. Katie and Jake weren't present for this meeting so we left notes on the sound brief and linked it into the discord. We didn't want to make too many decisions when two members of our team were absent. We decided that we'd consider making a commission contract to help us grasp the basics but we doubt we'll need to use it so it isn't a priority. I said I'd see if I could draft up an NDA. Reflections: Overall, this meeting went quite well despite missing two members. We made a good dent...

Date: 22/11/24 In Attendance: Me, Sam, Faye, Katie Meeting Agenda & My Role: The purpose of this meeting was to check up on everyone, discuss the script and create a list of assets we'll need for the game. Decisions and/or Actions & Deadlines: We discussed the creation of the script and decided to leave it intentionally vague so there's a bigger chance the players can relate to the patients. We discussed the character changing expressions depending on which route the player is currently going down (more stressed expressions = bad ending). Reflections: I think the assets we have planned are achievable as it's mostly character expressions with 1 background each + the therapists office. The style we are working in is quite simple and utilises cell shading which hopefully should help us complete these assets fairly quickly.

The main style focus for our game comes from the Monster Prom (Beautiful Glitch, 2018) franchise. Since I have played all the games, I was tasked by my team to find characters that best suit the aesthetics and appearance of the characters we are making. This will help me and my team mates replicate the style when it comes to designed our final character sprites. I have also included a lot of early character concepts that I got from the games galleries. Faye Zoe Zoe (Monster Camp, 2020 ) Lots of eyes Her main eyes and the eyes on her body can show different emotions/ look different. This could be a concept you can explore? Zoe's Deity/ True Form Zoe's Deity Form (Monster Prom, 2018) Zoe has a 'deity' form that's more monstrous/ beast like? Visible vein looking things could be good to show stress Glitch Glitch (Monster Roadtrip, 2022) Lots of eyes Eyes have accessories, could explore concepts similar to this? Maybe some eyes could be partially covered by notes etc Not...