Visual Design: The Look of the World and Game

No, I'm not done with character designs, I just thought you guys might want to see a little something different. That and it's nice to do something different for a little bit. Anyway, you guys might be wondering what Visual design is, as I have already referenced the setting of the world. Visual design is the colors and graphical style that the game will use. This covers things such as the color palette of the game and levels as well as the graphic animation, modeling, textures, shading, etc. As you can probably guess, I'm not going with a style that Sonic has seen before.

Characters: Knuckles the Echidna

 Sorry it's been a few days. I've been busy with a lot of other stuff...some imperitive, some not so much (although I will say that the Halo: Reach beta offers a lot of change from the classic Halo design that I welcome). Regardless, I've been wanting to get back this as soon as possible to continue with this design. Although currently it is not quite as exciting (lets face it, I'm simply modifying characters that already exist to suit this game) as entirely new content or characters (of which Sonic has enough for now) even slight modifications can bring about some real difference, such as with my reference to Halo: Reach. Anyway, why am I talking here? I should be letting you read up on Knuckles! Oh yes, still calling for concept art if you'd like to give it a go. Oh, and if you know anyone who would be interested in this site, let them know! The more feedback I have the better! Anyway, on with the designs!

Characters: Silver the Hedgehog

Another Character Update. As soon as I get all of these out of the way I'll jump into engine and graphics and then level concepts. Of course,there are a lot of characters, so this could take a bit. I may interrupt the characters periodically with the other stuff. Your call, what do you want to see next?

Characters: Shadow the Hedgehog

Alright, for the next week or so I'll be putting up some basic character concepts, as I already start with the other day. There are a lot of characters in this design (as you may have seen with earlier posts) and as I said, expect about 1/3 of them to be cut, but that leaves me with a lot of work in the meantime. Today, I decided to jump slightly ahead in the character roster and present Shadow. There were two reasons for doing so, the first of which is that I have been spending a large amount of time thinking about how to take his character past what has already been done. Secondly, he's popular and I do not doubt that people are more curious to see how Shadow works into this then say...Tails or Silver.

Characters: Sonic the Hedgehog

Alright,  before I move onto stages themselves, I'd answer a few questions and begin putting up the chracter profiles, plot and descriptions as well as begin to flesh out the playable differences between characters. At this time, I would also like to announce that I am opening this design document to your outside assistance in the form of concept art. Those of you who don't know as much about game design may be shocked to find that games can call for literally thousands of pieces of concept art, some of which never makes a public appearance, some of which sets the tone for the games many ideas, and some that goes as far as to add new ideas that can be built into the game. I'm not an artist in the visual 'draw, paint, or sketch' category myself, the best I can do is straightforward 2D sketches, so at this point I am opening the call to SatLoA concept art. If you read through this and want to do your own design of what the Atlantian cityscape, levels, or characters may look like, feel free and post a link in the comments of the section that best applies to that art. If if gets a favorable response and fits the vision, I'll go through and begin putting it in the design doc itself (with permission of course). So those of you who have the artist itch. sharpen your pencils, ink your pen and get ready!

The World: Atlantis Overview

Well, I said that this would be soon, but this is likely sooner then you expected. But I've found myself in possession of some more free time since finals ended, so much so that I am putting up another one tonight! Anyway, as promised, you're getting a world overview of Atlantis, the kingdom in which Sonic and the Legend of Atlantis takes place in.

Plot: The Basic Prompt, Outline, Characters and Key Events

Whew! Finals are over (much to my enjoyment) and I can finally get back to work on this! Now, the question in my mind following the last post was "in what direction do I go from here?" Not in the sense that I am out of ideas by any means, but in the concept that I present a logical flow of information based on the fact that this is a blog, and the less confusing it is the better. With that in mind, I feel that the next best area of presentation is plot, as the plot not only establishes the story, it more importantly defines the world in which the game is set. The world, at this point in design, is more vital knowledge then the actual plot of the game, because we need the stage to enact the play. So expect to see an in depth world description coming soon as well. Hopefully enough is here to be clear.

Many will notice that there is a lot of content here. Fact is, I'd expect about 33% (especially characters) to get cut from the game (I'd rather not, but some would be unnecessary, and some just due to time.