My Brief

My Brief

To design aspects of a completely new video game, taking on the role of a lead concept artist, including character and landscape concepts, promotional art (loading screens, posters etc.) and packaging art (game box, manual, extra poster/map etc).

The general outline of the story is of a man who starts as an unknowing character lacking in any defining traits. As the tale moves forward he learns more about his world and the abilities within every being on the planet – power, that most people are born with very little of, limited only by the speed which one can gain it through varying methods. This aspect of the plot stems from all the fiction that includes characters with great strength – I want to use this well known aspect and turn it into something plausible with its own logic. The idea is that he starts off as anyone would, but by the end with the help of many others and his own desire to gain strength he becomes one of the strongest, if not the strongest, beings on the planet. It is almost homage to the simple formula of many video games, especially RPG’s, where the player is encouraged to level up and get as powerful as possible. This would be the ultimate definition of that.

I’ve seen a huge amount of storylines and I feel that characters within can be somewhat categorized into 4 states.

The first would define beings that most in the real world belong to, from the weak to the moderately skilled and strong, which by our standards is still a lot. The second would imply a much higher level of attributes like strength and speed that the best of humanity and animals can achieve, which is rare but still real - World class athletes, people who have trained their minds and bodies to handle extreme conditions, soldiers who have served the military and elite groups for decades. What I want to do, however, is imagine what it would be like if human ability could keep going, much further than even that. The third would then encompass beings that surpass all notions of reality and include characters from a huge amount of fiction - People with magical prowess, supernatural abilities, intense skill and many other possible traits. This field is where most video game characters fit into, as they are given impressive traits far beyond reality, but not so much that they risk mishandling the subtleties of the storyline. The final stage is rarely seen even by fictional standards, which arethose who surpass anything that is ever usually seen in a character. Characters are not regularly given this status as it would end most if not all notions of a plausible story, as the said character would be able to make actions of any other character useless.  Nonetheless they are occasionally seen, capable of blowing up planets with a wave of a finger, blotting out the sky with their attacks, or leaping so high into the air they could be flying.