TEAM NOCTURNAL

Art Style Document for:

The Pulse

All work Copyright ©2013 by Nocturnal Inc.

Version # 1.00

Thursday, May 25, 2023

NAME STUDENT IDDenis Ong (Game Designer, Scripter) 118361Eliza Lim (Level Designer, Artist) 112326Jerrold Tan (Scrum Master , Game Designer, Level Designer, Scripter)

118331

May Heng (Game Designer, Artist) 118326

Table of Contents

CHARACTER_________________________________________________________________________3

Main Character (Color Scheme, Design process)

JAPAN_______________________________________________________________________________6

Monsters (Color Scheme, Design process)Tiles (Color Scheme, Design process)Objects (Color Scheme, Design process)

GREEK_______________________________________________________________________________9

Monsters (Color Scheme, Design process)Tiles (Color Scheme, Design process)Objects (Color Scheme, Design process)any other things i may have missed out

OTHERS______________________________________________________________________________4

Chest (Color Scheme, Design process)Portal (Color Scheme, Design process)

HUD________________________________________________________________________________20

VialLamp & Lamp OilHealthDirectional PadAttacking Button

USER INTERFACE___________________________________________________________________14

Main Menu (Every buttons and title) (Color Scheme, Design process) Level Selection (Color Scheme, Design process)Game over Screen (Color Scheme, Design process)

Character

Our main character

Overview

Our main character name is Seira, she is a bounty hunter that travels through different time era of different worlds to save her present by eliminating the enemy.

Creating her Character

Seira is the only sole bounty hunter in her time that survived. Seira was born as an orphan, not knowing who her parents were, she was brought up in a lovely family of bounty hunter that protected her and loves her and taught her the skills to protect herself, and unfortunately they were slaughtered and killed when their world was in chaos. From there, she has a strong sense of responsibility to protect what she loves, her world. Hence, she decided to make use of the powers that she has to travel through the past and the future to save her present. We portray her as a strong, lone and independent female character.

We decided to give her a very strong image by letting her wear something more comfortable and less feminine to show her stronger look and to give her a short crop hair. However, we wanted to also portray her soft lovable side towards the people by giving her a pink hair as pink is often denotes as love and also to not diminish her feminine side fully.

Greek World

In total we have 4 enemies in the Greek world. All of the enemies are distributed based on the countries they originated from as well as separating them to different era/time. The monsters also have their own dwelling and patrol path.

The enemies in the Greek world

All art here is drawn using Photoshop and designed to have the pixel 8bit look and to achieve that look mostly only pencil tool is used to draw them to create that look.

For Greek we have the following:

Lamia

A monster that only appears at normal Greek map & post apocalypse, it occasionally patrols at the river and the outer layer of levels.

Lamia is depicted as a beautiful queen but was cursed for being Zeus mistress to a child-devouring demon. Also because Lamia is described as a character that has snakeskin wrapped around her waist, it was decided to then give Lamia a snake tail. The reason why purple was used on Lamia is because we want the feeling of gloom and also purple is often associate with royalty and feminine clearly describing Lamia look.

Cyclops

Cyclops appears in normal & water area map. It patrols mostly at inner areas, and occasionally would be seen outside.

In the mythology, Cyclops is described as a giant with one eye. However it was decided to give Cyclops a little tweak. Cyclops is drawn to look dark and lonely and following the tales to give her one eye to fit the look. A hood was drawn to give her a very dark look and using black to describe her as death, mysterious and evil as black is often associates with fear and death. This is to give Cyclops a more scary and dark look.

Cerberus

The guard dog of hell appears only at the apocalypse map, and patrols everywhere.

Cerberus is a three headed dog that guards the gate of the underworld. To add a twist of modern technology, iron plating is added to one of its leg to have some kind of cyborg feel while making the the eyes white to give the scary diluted pupil look, but without the pupil.

Siren

Siren will only appear in water area. Patrols only at near water and can disappear within water to avoid getting attack.

Siren, Greek legend says that she is a woman, sometimes a mermaid that lives in the sea. She would play the harp to lure its prey to her, mainly Sailors. A simple harp is drawn for her in the sprite and to make her look slightly scary but unique. Two different eye colours were drawn, red and blue; this makes her look mysterious but creepy in a way. A mermaid look was drawn to make her look different from other monster, where majority of them

The look of the Greek World

The Greek world is separated into different era and places. In the Greek world we have a past of Greek where it is situated in the ancient Greek Era, a modern mountain map of Greek and lastly a post apocalypse look of Greek. All art here is drawn using Photoshop and designed to have the pixel 8bit look and to achieve that look mostly only pencil tool is used to draw them to create that look.

The tiles & objects used for the ancient Greek Era:

This is the pillars (walls) used for the map. The design is inspired by all the Greek pillars that is used in the past, the colors are usually very dirty white color for some which it is decided to be used for the map

This is the tilesets that were used as the flooring for the map. The tile set was insipired by many Greek tile design.

Objects in the game world:

A statue head is added into the maps as a landmark/blockage as the Greek legend is famous for having status of people’s head in the past to be made into such statue ornaments and place around. Also to give the place a more creepy feeling the statue is given a red eye to make it look more evil. The eye of the statue would follow the player around as there is an animation for the statue to do so.

The tiles & objects used for the Modern mountain Greek Look:

Fig 1.

This is a picture of the tile sets we have in the map. As shown in the picture, we decide to create a very sandy mountain look as inspired by some of the Greek mountains look that we have seen. As seen in the picture we have the mountain itself which are separated into different tile set merge together to create a whole mountain look.

This is tile set for the water tiles. The reason for using a more blue color is also due to the inspiration that was seen. The objects in the map:

The objects in the map are the stones and the pebbles. Like in a sandy mountain with a beach upfront, there should be some objects place to give the place a more realistic feeling and not so boring. For most of the objects and tiles we are trying to bring a more sandy lighter feel thus, most of the object have a lighter color.

The tiles & objects used for the Greek post apocalypse map:

This is the tile flooring for the map. We decided to give it a red and black look to make it look dead, evil with a bit of a Lava feel. The black gravel road tile is used clearly to have a road feel for the post apocalypse map.

The objects in the map:

The statue is drawn as the Greek legend is famous for having status of the people’s head in the past to be made into such statue and place around. I chose grey as I want to show the dirty look after the apocalypse and with the haunting red eyes that glows, hinting that perhaps the soul of the person’s head really is residing in the statues. We also decided to re-use the statue as we know there are a lot of ancient statues that is famous and passed down even till now; hence we decided to keep that.

Japan World

In total we have 5 enemies in the Japan world. All of the enemies are distributed based on the countries they originated from as well as separating them to different era/time. The monsters also have their own dwelling and patrol path.

The enemies in the Japan world

All art here is drawn using Photoshop and designed to have the pixel 8bit look and to achieve that look mostly only pencil tool is used to draw them to create that look.

For Japan we have the following:

Kappa

Kappa will appear mostly around water area, and would only patrol around there. The map that Kappa will appear is Japan Pavilion and Forest. It can dive in the water to avoid getting attack.

In the Japan folklore, Kappa is depicted as a river-child. Kappa is often describe to look green, yellow or blue and green was chosen for our case to show nature. They are also often describe to have a beak mouth, and a flat region on top of their head. The flat region on top of their head needs to be fill up fully with water, as that is where Kappa’s source of power is from. From there, Kappa was given a bottle of water to hold.

Jubokko

There are 2 types of tree monster in the game. One of the tree is a stationery tree that will appear to look like a normal tree and will only reveal itself when the player is near it and would attempt to attacked the player. The second type of tree is also stationery however would move and attack the player when the player is in range. Jubokko will appear only at shinto shrine and forest map.

Jubokko in Japanese means Vampire Tree. Hence, a red “eye” was given to Jubokko to describe it as blood or bloodshot eyes. Also a dark color is used to give the tree a dead and dark feeling as Jubokko would appear at places where many people dies (often in former battlefield).

Yuki Onna

Yuki Onna will appear at area where it’s cold and will be at the Indoor palacce and post apocalypse.

Yuki-Onna means snow woman. Stories describe Yuki-Onna as a character that is tall and beautiful with long black hair and blue lips. Yuki-onna is given a pale white-bluey look to give her that feeling of snow. Also a white-blue kimono was given to her to emphasize the origin of where she is from and the color was used to describe her softer-side. Besides that she is drawn floating as her feature as she is a spirit.

Kitsune

A royal enemy that will only appear at pavilion and the inner palace. Kitsune is from Japan folklore, a prince that got harassed by a fox sprite and eventually gets possessed,

becoming a fox sprite himself. Since he is a prince, I made him look modern royalty with the black suit with gold embroidery

Tengu Tengu will appear in the post apocalypse and Shinto shrine.

Tengu comes from Japan folklore, a human like god that has long nose and red face. To make some subtle changes but still maintaining the original look, Tengu was drawn as a human that turns into a Tengu (demon) when he has the mask on. Without the mask, he will look like any typical human but with a scar on his face, he was drawn wearing the traditional japan festive costume to emphasize on his origins, where his first appearance came from a long way back.

The look of the Japan world

The Japan world is being separated into 5 different places and era. The world is separated into the past, present and future; there is the ancient Japan Toho temple shrine, the Japan inner palace, the pavilion, the dark forest and lastly post apocalypse Japan.

The tiles & objects used for the ancient Japan Shinto temple shrine map:

This is three of the floorings there is use, with research and inspiration we can often see that there is a pathway leading to the shrine which it came to me to use brick looking tiles as the main walkway to reach the shrine. Whereas for the grass tile, it is a tile that would be use where the trees object is placed.

Fig 2

This is an example of how the tiles would look like.

Objects in the map:

As seen in the picture above, this is one of the decorative we use for the map. In Japan it is often called Toho which means Japan stone lantern. This is often seen in most Japan temple/shrine that was often placed outside, alongside the walkway.

This is the staircase leading towards the shrine. The colors used were slightly similar to the brick tiles as it was made to give it the feeling that it was created using the same materials as in the past materials used are often made of natural materials (e.g. stones, rock, wood etc.).

The text object is the Shinto gate called the Torii. As seen, it is a gate that is always found at the entrance of the shrine. Thus, it was decided to be used as a decorative too. It was decided to go with the basic Tori color red as commonly found and seen in most Torii.

This is the trees that are used as a decorative for the shrine. We decided to use a slightly darker green for the trees so as to make the place look more sacred.

The tiles & objects used for the Japan Inner Palace:

These are the flooring that was used for the inner palace. We decided to go with the traditional Japan look which is where we came about using Shoji (Japan paper door), the tatami floors as well as using the wooden planks for the walkway outside which is often seen in the Japan. We also decided to place this palace in a winter season where a snow floor can be seen as well. (A green border around the snow area is place to let it be seen more clearly)

The objects in the map:

The tables serve as a blockage in the indoor japan housing. Typically these tables are low and brown in color and since our map looks like a traditional japan home, we stick to the tradition and chose brown with some slight wood swirl texture. It was drawn in two different direction to make it less repetitive.

The tiles & objects used for the Japan Pavilion map:

This is the floorings used for the Japan outdoor Pavilion map. We wanted to have a variety of indoor and outdoor maps, hence we decided with the pavilion map. The floorings that are basically used would be stone tiles and the grass tiles. As it is located outdoor we decided that natural flooring like stone tile would be the most suitable for it.

This is the water flooring that is used in the map where there would be ponds or streams in the map. Different tile sets is created so that we can have endless choice to create any types/ look of ponds that we want to. (Some examples above)

Objects in the map:

The first object that we have is the Sakura which is Cherry Blossom. We decided to create the map in the event of a cherry blossom season which Japan is popular for. Following the same look of a cherry blossom, it is a sparse looking branches combining with light pink petals. The cherry blossom is also animated in the map.

The next object that was used as a decorative in the map is a Shishi-odoshi which is also known as the deer scare. It is often placed in garden or areas that have plants to scare away herbivores like deer or boars. The deer scare is mostly made using bamboo, which is why the color is slightly yellow-green. The deer scare will move up and down in a cycle hence, we decided to make the deer scare animated in the map.

Next we have the bridge that serves as a shortcut for the player across the water. We decided to use the color red and grey-black for the bridge to give it a more traditional Japan feel.

The last object is the pavilion. The pavilion was drawn based on many research and references from real pavilion pictures.

The tiles & objects used for the Japan Forest map:

This are the flooring tile used in the forest map. Where we have the dirt tiles and the grass tile, the grass tile used are darker than the usual as we wanted the forest to be darker. Different tiles set combining both the grass and the dirt together was made to give the effect of having a more realistic dirt path. (Examples shown above)

Objects in the map:

These are the trees that are used in the map. Two different colored trees will be used to give the forest more colors. The colors of the trees are darker to give a darker feel.

This is the abandon hut that is found as a landmark in the forest. We decided to give the hut a wood texture to make it look more nature like, as well as giving it a broken down look to have that abandon hut look. Also brown is chosen as a color as brown is the color of the tree trunk.

The tiles & objects used for the Japan Post apocalypse map:

Road Tile (All the drawings are done with pencil tool)

These two are the flooring for the Japan apocalypse map. The brown tile with the brick design is for the road or pavement for the map. Since the road is typically black/grey. I chose to opt for another contrasting but practical color. Brown is sometimes use as pavement flooring and thus brown is chosen. For the pavement tile, I have 4 types where I rotate and change the “cracks” on the pavement to make it less repetitive. To add a bit of dimension, a brick design was picked. As for the road, it’s the usual tar and rocky kind of texture with white strips. White and a darker shade color was added to make it more 3 dimensional. The road texture stays the same throughout but different variations were made like the vertical white strip, a cross, some zebra crossing to make it more realistic and close to the real world as we would see on a typical street.

Objects in the map:

The building is for modern Japan apocalypse and the theme of the map was Japan Shibuya kind of building so a mall with nice glass (I chose blue) and elevator was drawn. A few smashed glasses and cracked ceiling tops were added to fit the apocalypse theme more.

The vehicles drawn serves as a more natural looking blockage for the map. I drew a variety of vehicles in different colors as well as change certain “damage” done to each vehicle. This is to make the map look less boring and since it’s in a modern world setting, there bound to be vehicles along the road and they must have the wrecked look to look more like the apocalypse just happened.

Debris (All the drawings are done with pencil tool)

Debris also serve as a blockage in the map and to make it look like buildings did get destroyed and thus these pieces are lying around the map, be it on the street or road. A little cracks were added on the debris and grey color were chosen as these debris are supposed to be from buildings, matching with the mall building I drew, the part that broke off are majority grey in color

Lamp (All the drawings are done with pencil tool)

Street lamps are also commonly found along the street of modern japan and the lamps will be flickering in the map to show electricity fault. Grey was chosen to stick to the common grey street lamp we see on the street to match the modern times.

OthersThis are the other objects that is found in all of the maps regardless of what country the player is in. The objects in the game are the chest box and the portal, the chest box is where the players receive their risk and reward whereas the portal is how the player get out of the map.

The red chest box above is the chest that will appear anywhere in the game map, the chest box is design to aid the player in the game. However there will also be an opportunity for the player to encounter an enemy. It is made in red, lined with gold to show the importance of the chest.

The above picture is actually the portal, where the player uses this to time travel and escape from the reaper. Green was chosen as it reminded us of the matrix where it takes people to different time zone. It is also made oval and with a symmetrical design of the swirl inside.

HUDThe HUD consists of the following:

Vial

The vial in the game plays an important role as it is the main rare item that the player can gain while they explore through the map. The vial will help the player to reveal the whole map in a split second through a pulsing effect.

As seen here in the picture, the vial has a shape of a potion pot as we wanted to give off a sense of power. Orange color was used as orange is often associated with energy or encouragement. A brighter color was actually picked as we felt that this few items are items that gives the hero powers hence we felt that dull colors are not really acceptable.

Lamp & Lamp Oil

The lamp is what the player would be having/holding at the very start of each map, the lamp is an object that helps light out a very minimum amount of light for the hero to see what is around her and it was made in a more traditional design as after all this is time travel, when he travels back time he will be made to use the old fashion method, which is lighting of the lamp with oil.

The yellow tube is actually an oil bottle that the player will find in the chest box, the oil actually help the player reveal more of the darkness as the player first use the oil for a certain time limit. Yellow is chosen to show that it’s oil inside.

Health

This is a health orb that the player can obtain in the game via the chest box that helps regen health. Red was chosen to signify health.

Directional Pad

This is the directional pad that will be at the corner allowing the user to use this to move the character around.

This is the attacking button that lets the user to click this button to attack the enemy.

User interface

Main Menu

Title of our game: The Pulse

It’s a simple design with just 3 different shade of brown to render the title. The black thick outline is to show a 2.5D effect for the title and to make things a little more interesting, I change the letter L to an image of a sword. Our main character in the game uses a sword to attack and thus thought of showing it in the title. This could perhaps be a little foreshadowing of the game, letting players know roughly the kind of weapons that are used in this game.

Main Menu Background

This is the main menu background. What we are trying to achieve is to show them the “world” in our background. By using only dark colors and silhouette design for the background, it actually allows people to decipher between the looks of the silhouette design. From the two silhouette buildings at the side, some people decipher it as the Greek building whereas some thinks it is the Japan Toho and these two is the main country that we have in the game currently. A gradient sky color is design to show a dark sky as the background.

Selection Buttons

This are the few examples of the selection buttons that will be found at the main menu. In total there will be the start, help, exit game, help, quit, save, load buttons. A very basic color black is chosen to match the dark blue night sky background that is used for the main menu.

Japan Title Screen

This will be the banner for the level selection for the Japan map. I drew a pavilion that can be found in Japan and what other items can better represent Japan other than Cherry Blossom. Cherry Blossom is one of the things people remember or know Japan of and thus I drew them in full bloom to emphasize the beauty of them as to why people remember. The pavilion is also intentionally drawn in a design that can already be seen in olden days I chose darker colors to make the player know that the maps in this theme is not all cheery as well as to contrast with the cherry blossom. As also seen from the background, I also colored the background behind the pavilion slightly darker as compared to the one behind the cherry blossom, using a little ombre effect. I made the word “Japan” has an outer glow to make it stand out from all the background.

Greek Title Screen

This will be the banner for the Greek theme maps. I drew the famous pillar-pavilion that always appear in similar time zone films and the history of Greece. These pillar-pavilions are typically brown or grey. I chose brown as grey will be too flat looking and the brown also gives a nice contrast to the background of blue. I chose a night view of the Greek title and there is also a slight ombre effect on the background. The darker shade of blue further emphasize on the stars that are shinning and I also made the word Greek have an outer glow to make it stand out.

Level Selection

This will represent the different levels for each theme. The one with the locked icon means the level is not open, player have not cleared the previous level and is not allowed to move onto the next level. I chose a dark blue as our main menu background is blue, and this will complement the background without having too many colors around, not being able to allow the eye to focus on something. Too many colors might cause the player not know where to land his or her eyes on and thus chose this color. We have 5 different levels in each theme and I did 4 other level with the same color and design. Just that the number inside is different.

Game Over Screen

This will be the game over screen, indicating that the player has lost. It’s again in 8 bit feel, and I intentionally drew the red line to look like how a heartbeat reader will look like when measuring a person’s heart rate, as seen in hospitals. This also allows us to link back to the theme of the whole game, heartbeat. I chose a simple grey design for the font color with just a little rendering of 3 different shade of grey. For the lines I simple just use 2 shade of red to render a little.