The Aesthetic Evolution Of Blush

Blush has come a long way from its humble beginnings at TIGJam to the game we drop on you later this week. It’s been pretty interesting wrapping something beautiful around an entirely monochromatic and overly simplistic prototype and I thought I’d share some snapshots of the process.

This was what it looked like at TIGJam when it was called Squiddy. It was very functional and the stark contrast put emphasis on the flowing motion of the tentacles, which was essentially the heart of the prototype.

When we began tossing the idea around of making an official Blurt game out of it my instinct was to push the black and white aspect of the look. This was my first mock.

After looking at for a while we all became concerned that if we were to continue in this direction it might overly resemble Flow. So when we inevitably decided to use color, I threw out a bunch of ideas to see what would resonate with everyone else.*

You can see in the lower right hand corner of the image what the general idea of each concept was. I personally expanded upon idea 2 as I saw bioluminscence as exciting territory. I wanted the team to be into the idea of a glowy, bloomy, see-through squid so I hit that first.

Once I placed it into an environment that was also glowy and bloomy I think everyone was feeling it.

The timing on these last few bits was perfect, as our initial part of the 8 week phase (pre-production) was wrapping up. I had developed a vision for the game by this part of the project that I wanted to communicate to the rest of the team. This image was created not only to showcase what I though would be a viable environment, but also to serve a production list. Hence the numbers and the corresponding key to the right of the image.

At some point during a game play mechanic discussion we were tossing around the idea of different abilities that affected your movement through space. In my eternal love of visual effects I made an image showing off different ways we could enhance the character.* One of these was actually implemented (but has changed since it’s initial incarnation), one is used heavily, and one was implemented but not actually used for anything. The rest were scrapped, but that’s okay! It was a useful source of visual inspiration.

At this point the game was called Blush and the aesthetic was falling into place. I created this image one day out of screenshots we were preparing for OffWorld not too long ago. This is NOT the logo or the menu for the actual game, it was just an image I made so I could personally experiment with text and colors.

This is about as much as I can show you before I’m basically showing off screenshots…WHICH I’LL DO LATER THIS WEEK! For your own information, this game has come quite a long way since even that image…

More information in the following days!

*For all you professional artists out there…one of the best things you can is formally sharing what you do best…CREATING! Spill your brain into a form others can perceive! Your ideas aren’t useful while they’re floating around inside your skull. When you put a bunch of ideas in front of the people you work with (even if you feel they aren’t neccessarily good) you are expanding the creative potential of whatever you’re working on by providing tangible options for your team members. Besides, when you let others pick and choose from elements you’ve created, you’re still the artist yet other feel as if they have had some say! So spill it, chumps. All of it. For better or for worse.