Spring Submission - Unused Concepts (the nature of game making)

As is with most things, loads of ideas end up being left behind on the cutting room floor, either because they aren't viable, or they get replaced or so forth. This post covers some of the things I helped create that didn't end up in the final product.

I suppose the easiest place to start with this was our desire to implement bosses into the game at an early stage; me and Prem were particularly enthusiastic due to our interest in Character Actions Games. that have huge set piece bosses like Metal Gear rising;

However for my part it wasn't far past concept that we realised our ambition might not meet reality, even with enthusiasm. But this section is to shed light on our failed ideas to show our prcoess, The idea was that each stage would end with a boss, either fitting for the stage or story of the game.

This meant we had a split of ideas for nature themed and militaristic style of monsters and opponents.
Below is some of the concept for our Earth Golem/Elemental that was to be the boss of the Desert stage. (in earlier concepts i wanted there to be a volcano stage and he would emerge from the volcano.)

This ranged from idea's that were playing around with the positioning of the boss, to factor in the ability to show the boss attacking with enough clarity that the player could appropriately avoid the hits if they were skilled enough (basically as a balance to the game) as well as difficulty in taking this onto further stages of production.

The other image covered a possible design, with the emphasis on the large and threatening nature of it's design, as well as toughness due to the rock theming. I made sure to convey the rocky layering of earch and boulders protruding from it's body. Although because it got scrapped i got to re-purpose it for our lava monster sketchbook assignment (shameless self promotion)

Onto more Stuff;

I even was in progress to create a title splash screen for the game, I was following the theme of having it be the inside of the players ship, so i was having fun creating the shape for the border or the ships "screen" and trying to create a somewhat nice and simple looking design.

Sadly it was decided that Prem would take over designing the splash screen so these didn't make it to the end version. but still I am happy that i put the work in to make these (using some of that texturing knowledge to layer the hexagon pattern onto the screen).

And lastly a game over screen/ you won screen that didn't get through (this one mostly due to time;

The main art piece in the center is done by Razvan, so please give credit to him for that, but the framing was mine, as i gave the image the direction of being the game over screen. Since the idea is that our player is a "bad guy" the idea of them winning is good for them, bad for everyone else. so i wanted to make a homage to the Chrono trigger "But the future refused to change" style of Game over.

And thats Game Development, some things work, and some things don't make it quite all the way to the end.