Visual Design

Graphics

Witch One will have a top-down orthogonal perspective (ex: Legend of Zelda) with 2D sprites to represent the environment. The game will use a lot of dynamic lighting effects as it is part of the core gameplay. There will be slight animations for a few environmental objects, such as trees for example.

(Figure 1) Art style and perspective
(Figure 2) Interior design

For the art style, a single tile will be 32x32 pixels big while the player will be 32 wide and 60 pixels tall. The world unit is 32 pixels. The throwable and consumable objects should fit this proportion and make be smaller than 32x32 pixels. Furthermore, Witch One must follow the following color palette for both the character and prop sprites.

(Figure 3) Sprite color palette

A single component of an asset (such as metal, gold, cloth, etc.) should be within 2 variations of light to dark palettes/color. More can be added later but the main idea is that an object (e.g a wooden barrel) should use similar wood colors as the trees in the environment.

Visual Themes

Maps will have the following themed areas and world types:

  • Swamp Area

  • Shadowlands

  • Grasslands

  • Desert Area

  • Snow area

  • Cave area

  • Villages

  • Castle interior

  • Dungeon interior

For the overall visual theme, the game will have medieval aesthetics (castles, village houses, torches, etc.). One map may have multiple biomes, and each one might have many areas with different sections and themes. For example, the grassland biome may be divided into forests with many trees, fields with short vegetation, and bush areas surrounding rivers. While multiple areas with different biomes are not necessarily required, all maps should have areas with differences (even if small) in gameplay, otherwise, the map will be dull. The biomes are generally a visual thing and may not be related to such gameplay differences between the areas of the map. Some exceptions are places that thematically have trees, houses, or ice.

Fonts

In-game fonts have squared edges, in such a way they feel slighty of arcade games but are still clear and legible. Currently, we are using Press Start 2P. Some text may be written using hand-written fonts or fonts that resemble a "magical feeling" (this especially applies to text that is supposed to be written by characters of the in-game lore, such as a letter's content). However, if this project is to have multi-language support, we will have to find different fonts for each language.

(Figure 4) "Press Start 2P" font example and available glyphs

HUD Design

The menu HUD will be mostly composed of high contrast colored buttons and panels with pixelated fonts. The control and interface icons will resemble "magical symbols" in appearance, besides also being pixelated and having squared edges (they must also have colored outlines to stand out from the game scene). The colors will mostly be shades of purple and white, which are thematically the main colors of the game, and also orange colors, since they are complementary to purple.

(Figure 5) Game Login menu and HUD interface concept

Player Character

The player character will be an 8-directional 32bit pixel sprite. There will be different player classes with different footprints and skins, but each character's components will not be customizable (excluding the color) and all player characters will be female. The classes will be chosen from the following archetype list:

  • Shadeboi (regular novice shadow)

  • Regular novice (think shade without gloves and normal skin color as a base character)

  • Wicca (good-natured witch like a druid)

  • Exorcist (a priest with magic powers 😉 )

  • Bruja (Latina witch uses charms)

  • Timebender (wizard that can forward or reverse time)

  • Demona (witch using hell as a source of power)

  • Jinn (evil spirit from the Muslim world)

  • Sangoma (south African witches/healers)

  • Skinwalker (Navajo witch that can turn into animals)

  • Kitsune-mochi (fox spirits known for witchcraft in Japan)

Due to our limited development schedule, the initial game will only focus on implementing three classes, each one having either no skins or only a single one, but the game will gradually add more skins and classes. Character proportions will look like the following:

(Figure 8) Druid sprite
(Figure 9) Sangoma sprite
(Figure 10) Pyro sprite

Characters will have multiple motion states, actions, and directions for each state.

Animation types:

Motion:

  • Looping animation

Action:

  • Linear animation

  • Triggers or certain conditions

Character action sate:

  • Idle

  • Attack (stabbing with a crystal)

  • Dead (no animations, only two directions of the character laying down)

  • 8 view directions, and 3 (or more) frames of animation for each state.

(Figure 11) Player character sprite directions

Items

Item sprites may have different variants that are randomized but will not have directional animations. Items can have looping animations or linear animations (non-loop) that play depending on the state of the item. Using an item can be followed by a special visual effect that can be triggered based on the item state. The visual effect will be considered as a separate asset.

Item types

  • Throwable

  • Consumable

Trigger Moments (Item State)

Common:

  • Field (in-game world)

  • Can have a looping animation or effect

    • Inventory Slot

    • Cannot have any animation

Throwable Items:

  • Mid-Air (thrown)

  • Can have a looping animation or effect

    • On-Ground (landed)

    • Can have a looping animation or effect

    • Trigger Item Effect

      • This can be triggered as soon as the item lands or after a certain condition (ex: if a player collides with the item)

      • Can have a looping animation or effect

      • Can have a linear animation or effect

Consumable Items:

  • Post-Consumption

  • Can have a linear effect

  • Cannot have any animation

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