Art Direction of Spirit Siege - Part 2: After Kickstarter

This is Part 2 of a two-part post about the evolution of Spirit Siege's art direction. If you haven't already, check out Part 1.

Art Direction of Spirit Siege - Part 1: Before Kickstarter

Note: This is Part 1 of a two-part post about the evolution of Spirit Siege's art direction. If you'd like to jump ahead, here is Part 2.

Art direction is what enables a team of individuals with their own strengths, weaknesses, and artistic styles to ship a unified product. It is the process of getting the team aligned around a vision, a clear goal of what we're all aiming for, why we're aiming for it, and how we're going to achieve it. Done well, it contains the decisions that make a thousand others.

Deck Builder Visual Design

Spirit Siege has a deck builder now! This screen was the first real opportunity to flesh out and nail down the visual language of menus, so lots of the problems we solved here will carry over into other parts of the game.

Choice Menu

Between rounds, the player interacts with the carnival barker host, learns new concepts, and makes strategic choices which determine how hard it will be to make future round payments. These choices are where the real life financial concepts really intersect with our carnival metaphor. 

A Fistful of Duckies Title Screen

A Fistful of Duckies is a mobile carnival shooter being developed for Android and iOS tablets. The wide screen format (above) is the widest aspect ratio on the Android, and the cropped version (right) is how it looks on the iPad. The button leads to the main menu. This is the widest shot the player ever sees of the carnival setting since the rest of the game takes place within the stage space. I used the thumbnails (below) to work out value composition and color before moving on to the final piece.  

The Barker character was designed and drawn by our animator, Parker Pierce.

Bonbon Voyage - Title Illustration

Quick & dirty illustration for the title menu. As you may have noticed, many of these elements are embellished versions of the orthographic concept art made earlier in the process. We needed something fast, and this was a reasonable solution which still conveyed the essential character of our game. Buttons along the bottom (over the grass) let the player begin a new game, read a tutorial, see the credits, and exit. 

The character was designed and drawn by our character artist, Jacqui Sessa.

Tashi & Hom Game Menus

Pause menu, confirmation menu, lose screen, and win screen from Tashi & Hom, a hack-and-slash action game about a little boy and his magical companion fighting their way through waves of delightful enemies in stylized Bhutanese-inspired temples.