Programs: After Effects, Photoshop
This is an animated video showing a concept for a game. The game is about Mare, the folklore creature that brings nightmares. However in this world she is the guardian of dreams. So the plot is that the dream world is in peril. An unknown force is disrupting the balance between dreams and nightmares, leading to people in the waking world suffering from endless, dreamless sleep. Without dreams, creativity and hope are draining from the real world, and sleepers cannot process the things that happened to them during the day. Mare, the keeper of dreams and nightmares, goes through different dream worlds to gather the dreams and bring them back to their sleepers.
It is set in a surreal dream world and is played as a 2D platformer.
This was a team project and in that team I was art director and animator. I did the two colorscripts above to get a feeling of how the world was going to look. We chose to go more for the first one because the pinks and purples add to the dreamy feeling, however we still used aspects of the second one.
I also did the design for the character. So I started sketching more generally and then as a team we narrowed it down to the final design. Since the game is supposed to have a somewhat creepy feeling we liked the more blob character since it's not as human. The main character is version of the myth mare. Because of that I took some inspiration from owls when designing certain parts like the face. Because in the research we found that in some myths the mare can transform into a bird. Owls are also kind of associated with the night time.
In the group we also divided up every scene to animate. So I animated the scene above. Where I took elements that the designer had created and then changed and added thing to fit my scene. Most of the animations were quite small and were meant to bring life to the environment, like the leaves moving in the wind. I also animated sparkles to show when an action is being made, like when mare gives the dream back and then the circles show as well that the stage is completed, so it's clear to the player. Since this is the final part of the stage where the dream gets returned I added some animations and adjustment layers that brightened up the whole picture to also show that the goal was completed.
I also animated the whale below which is seen in the background of another scene.
Credit:
Madicken Larsson Plado: Designer, Animator
Malin Eriksson: Art Director, Animator
Mara Van Wijck: Enviorment Artist, Animator
Simon Rådberg: Game Designer, Animator
Sylvain Guérin Österlin: Producer, Animator, Sound