Logo Design, character expressions, overworld map

I've been kinda busy with school and life and I actually forgot to update the Log before, so from now on I´ll try to be a lot more constant with the updates.

First of all, this past weeks I worked not only in my game, but also in some other projects I had to deliver, so the update won't have a big impact in the overall gameplay, but to be honest I´m happy with the assets and designs I created.

This post will be divided in 3 different sections: Logo design, Character Expressions and Overworld design.

Let´s begin with the logo design!

Having in mind that the whole game takes place in a "Catastrophic" city, I decided to look for references of towns and city logos/signs to create a picture in my mind of what the logo could be.

What I noticed is that most of the signs have the name of the city and a small design that gives character to the place. This became the starting point to create sketches that could picture the energy of Catastrophe City:

I played with some font ideas and different sizes until I finally realized that the best reference I could use was an actual catastrophic City:

And so, the logo concept was born:

When the sketch was finished, I scanned it to digitalize and finish the details:

This was the "almost" finished result. After looking it for a while, I clearly noticed the "Pyramid" triangle thing was obviously out of place. So, we still have to work on that part. The triangle will be replaced with a small city with lights and glow, but for now, this is what I got (Thrust me, it will look nice).

I´ll leave some other references I made use of during this process:

I made use of a lot more references but I won´t put them all in here.

Next: Character expressions:

The past week I wasn´t really in the mood of "tile creation", so I decided to focus my attention in some character design (the fact is that I been working mostly on level design and I was overlooking the characters), and what better way to begin that with the main character!

I grabbed a emotion chart from google and began sketching! 

First of all, I really don´t understand what "bad" really means as an expression, so if anyone could tell me, I´ll be happy to read the answer.

Looking at the wheel, I got an idea. I decided that the core expressions (the ones that are in the center of the chart) had to be (obviously) less exaggerated than the expressions from the outer circles. The way this is represented with Rick (the main character of Catastrophe City) is through the use of exaggeration in the shape of his head. The basic or less exaggerated expressions are more rounded, evolving and stretching gradually and parallel to the exaggeration. 

As an example: Happy would look rounded; faithful to the main design. Joyful would look more stretched and exaggerated, toying with the characteristics of Rick a lot more, such as the whiskers, ears, eyes, etc.

This is the progress done with Rick expressions. Giving more life to the character is fundamental; that way I can understand It better and the animation and dialog will be easier to work with.

For now I think this is fine, but in the future I would like to work at least 25 expressions total.

Finally, my favorite part (even though it still in process): The overworld map.

As always, I looked for references that I could use. When I think of overworld maps, the first thing that comes to my mind is Cuphead, Mario bros and Shovel Knight; that's how I got my references.

The map is being worked in pixel art.

I already had a mockup of the overworld of Catastrophe City:

So I decided to begin with the main town. 

I uploaded the image to Pyxel Edit and begin working. At first I had trouble getting used to the interface, but that changed really fast. Pyxel Edit becomes really friendly with the user after a while.

This is the progress made so far:

I created some tile trees, mountains, lamps and the baseline of the main town. Even though this isn´t the final result, I like the way things are turning out and I´m actually learning a lot during the process.

This is the progress made so far. Mostly design. From now on I´ll be focusing on the actual gameplay, UI and enemy behavior. I need to dive into Unity to see what can be done for now.

I hope you like this updates and thrust me, I´ll be a lot more active from now on.

Until next week!