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Or why COOL and KID-FRIENDLY aren’t always easy to bring together…

I want to look at something that plagues me every day at my job.  Its the crux of every design problem we tackle and is almost always the difference between what we produce being lame or fun.  The question is;  How do we make cute kid-friendly stuff without sacrificing on radical zazz?!

Background (read this to the party before the adventure begins):  I work at a video games company, Kiz Studios.  We make games for kids roughly ages 8-14.  That’s a WIDE demographic when you start thinking about what kids are into at either end of that spectrum.  Considering a game like SMASHMUCK CHAMPIONS you can see how that’s especially challenging.  There has to be at least one champ to appeal to every potential user within that spread.  As fast as kids are growing and their interests are changing that’s a lot of ground to cover.

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About Smashmuck:

I know I’ve been posting snippets from time to time about this thing.  We’ve been cranking stuff out at ludicrious speed for not quite 6 months and there is already plenty to show off.  And I’m responsible for posting most of the other sneak peeks on the Facebook page that you all need to go like if you want in on the Beta news that is rapidly approaching!

Here’s the totally-officious description:

SmashMuck Champions is a free-to-play arena combat game that combines intense action, player skill and strategy. Players build their own SmashMuck teams, training and customizing some of the toughest muck monsters, robots and creatures on Planet Muck. Then they send their Champions into battle, joining up to ten players in one of four action-packed game types. Combat is fast-paced and easy to learn, with tons of unique skills, weapons and attacks that you can master on your way to becoming the next SmashMuck Champion.

If you want to comment on the video or subscribe to the Smashmuck Champions channel I encourage you to jump over to YouTube and do so!

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Back on topic!

There are a few basic Kid-friendly tenants we have to abide by when makin’ the arts:

• No Guts, No Gore: Pretty straight forward. 
• No Blood:  E for Everyone actually permits animated blood, but we didn’t want to go this far down the violence rabbit hole.
• No Scary:  This one gets tricky, but there is a line; lookin’ at you fleshy-robot-doom monster.
• No Adults: Its a world of only kids and monsters and fun stuff.
• Cartoon Violence Only:  You clobber somebody with a mallet stars WILL swirl around their head. 

When I got really involved and stopped pushing the envelope and tryed to just unwrap it and build a paper airplane to fly away on (I was trying to put a pipe-smoking monkey that talked like Harvey Firestein in the world out of boredom) we settled on a few more guidelines:

• MORE ZAZZ:  My basic rule for art, period.  (apparently comma, then period.)  No kids in blue jeans please, give her a jetpack, etc.
• No Guns:  I broke this rule eventually (but only because another rule let me), but all of my original weapons designs were hodge-podged appliances and goofy stuff.  Fun, cool, deadly enough to take down the monster and robots you’d encounter; which brings us to
• No Kid v Kid Violence:  Obviously something to avoid.
• Monster and Robots have no Souls:  Even the ones with personalities; so take out that aggression kid.  Here’s a baseball bat.  This is when I gave Blitz a gun, because he could shoot monsters and robots with it.

The bullet points make sense, and most every wrinkle can be ironed out if you extrapolate them.  But what does it mean for Smashmuck?  These won’t outright solve the problem.  There is a difference between cute pokemon that nobody likes and AWESOME pokemon that still manage to be cute, amiright?

Well if you’re familiar with the Muck Critters from Planet Muck previously they’d only been seen as mischief makers and the lowliest footsoldiers of our sinister villain.  They’re certainly cute and have all the cartoon ‘gumby’ properties (being made of sticky mud) you want to let them do just about anything; but, they’re completely devoid of individuality.  That’s just not interesting enough in a MOBA setting like Smashmuck.  There is also the ESSENTIAL need to make every Champ cool enough a user will want to play with them, their unique skills, powers and playstyle.  A good self check is, “Would this make a sweet action figure?”

So put one on top of a slobbering death-muck-chicken and give him a minigun.  Solved?

Off the top of my head Blitz has the only traditional gun in the universe.  I really wanted to avoid pointing something and pulling a trigger; so everything prior has been a crank or a switch or a toaster…  You get the idea.  Its just a horribly violent connotation.  But, the perspective of the Smashmuck camera (yes, the position of the camera makes a huge difference… think about it, you aren’t really aiming anymore when you’re looking down from above) and the fact he is a monster battling other monsters and robots in a crazy American Gladiators sport makes this ok.

There are some pretty intimidating Champs lurking in the background in this one.  And I find that is really the sweet spot for “scary” stuff.  If the lights were all on, we’d laugh at these guys.  But under or backlight them, let them loom up out of the shadows and they should be rather intimidating.   Scuttlemuck is a pretty good example of this.  Up close his snarling shark face could be pretty spooky but from a distance the pear-shaped body reads as pretty nonthreatening.  The most monstrous champs tend to get the least threatening body shapes.  Here’s another example:

Scathe, the Muck Dragon, sticks to the script.  I also went without arms, it gives him a sort of helplessness that he can’t pick stuff up easily.  Keeping him looking a bit like an old man is also sort of disarming (puns?!) or extra creepy depending on how you feel about old people.  Use your ‘magination and picture a Skyrim dragon (timely!)  and then Pete’s Dragon (disney!).  Scathe is definitely in between the two on the Rock N’ Roll <-> Dangerously Tame scale.  I think that’s essential for the longevity of the character’s appeal as a player moves through the agerange of the demo.

Brutus, the gladiator, is the most classic looking warrior character.  V-shaped torso, helmet that mostly covers his face for that edgy cool, tall boots…  But the sword isn’t sharp.  Its just a square stick of metal.  I figure nobody has the balls to tell him he’s doing it wrong (pre-pubesence jokes?), and he really makes up for it with enthusiasum regardless. Brutus also just skirts the bottom line of having enough “stuff” to be interesting. To keep that cartoony vibe you have to exercise a lot of restraint and not overwhelm a character. Gears of War armor would not fly, it wouldn’t matter if Micky Mouse was underneath all that.  The Rumblebots we see getting served here focus on the sporty undercurrent of the carnage.

I don’t know a better way to discuss this than with some light analysis/commentary on a couple of these illustrations and concepts but its one of the trickiest design issues I’ve run into.  Its a fine line with lots of pitfalls, but where exactly that line is really boils down to the world/universe you’re working in and what rules apply there, the same as with ANY concept you may be tackling.  There are days I absolutely miss drawings guns, dinosaurs, cowboys, sorcereress chicks, etc. and balancing a successful and zazzed up concept with kid-friendly boundaries takes some getting used to.  A point for point or step by step guide would be a small tome of information.  I do get asked for that sort of thing, along with “how can I learn how to draw good” a lot.  A LOT. 

I hope you all enjoyed a little peek behind the Smashmuck curtain. Stay tuned for more insights and cool stuff. Keep Smashing!

-AW

I’ve had this done for over a week I think. Just haven’t had a chance to post it. My blog is becoming exceedingly suited for the Pony Express’ delivery schedule.

Barely over 3 hrs total, calling it done:

Needless to say I enjoyed the new Laura Marling album. And I appreciate that it is an ALBUM not a pile of songs, good, great, or otherwise. Its one of those that might as well just have been one track. You don’t want to listen to it any other way.

Tons to write about but too much Smashmuck stewing in my life-brew.

-AW

Been trying to make time to fiddle with some studies. Doing portraits from photos at the moment. Trying to improve my painting…

Little over two hours in atm. The hair really lacks volume atm and its killing me. I just need to flatten the few layers I’ve got going and lasso it around.

–AW

I got some good feedback on my first pack of noseless skins for Minecraft. I did a second similar set for those who are either; tyrannical overlords wanting to rule their subjects with an iron fist; or righteous lone warriors purging Mincraftia of its evil nations. This skin pack would look great against a dark texture pack.

DOWNLOAD HERE!

I’d like to do a third set in a brighter palette with a King and his court for honorable knights to protect and serve…

Seriously though I can imagine different sets reflecting different nationalities (Egyptian set would be cool for desert biomes) and they only take about an hour to paint and an hour to put the zip and blog stuff together.

–AW

Well Minecraft is all ablaze with some new update lovin’. And I gotta say its got its hooks right back in me mostly thanks to the radical new NPC villagers. I have made it my personal quest in this brave new world to protect them in my current build.

The internet, being the internet, is rife with angst over the original look of these guys though. And I gotta agree the art leaves me a tad wanting. So, here’s a skin pack of noseless (if you’ve seen the originals you know what I mean) villagers for you all to enjoy!

DOWNLOAD HERE!

–AW

WHOA! I am so pumped about these Destroyer characters! Doodled them up over a couple days at the office and am lucky enough to get to show them off almost immediately.

I won’t bother reposting the official description of the gametype here, its on the

To start I just sketch out the character as quickly as possible. I work light and then increase the pressure I apply to the pen as I tighten everything up. You can also see I lightly shaded in some darks to clarify the forms and round the figure. This is also the stage I’ll lasso off different segments of the character and play with the proportions. Originally the head was about twice the size it is here and the arms were very stubby. You can imagine what a difference that would make…

Some artists would go for a super super clean mechanical pen kind of finish at this stage before proceeding to flats (just flat color basecoat). I’m way too messy for that, I’ve never enjoyed that process. The mechanical illustration step is very time consuming and doesn’t really give anyone any information they didn’t already have… at least in my opinion .

Next I lay in a quick hard edge base basecoat at 100% opacity. Sometimes I’ll grab this and make it a mask for the next layer(s). The stone color is very warm here, but I know the character will be in a warm environment (ergo the brown background as well). Never ever concept on a white background if you’re going to do colors. The whole piece will end up washed out and considerably less valuable to the texture artists down the pipe who would just as soon color pick from it.

After that I have a layer or two set to Overlay mode that block in my colors. Often I just do this on the same layer as the rest of the basecoat at 100% opacity. But I was feeling super picky about the blues so I wanted to be able to easily tweak the temperature on these elements.

Last basecoat layer here, where I just sketch in some basic highlights on the stone.

Finally I fire up the “Over Paint” layer which is almost always the top layer in a painting unless there is some glow. Here I just paint over EVERYTHING else I’ve done up to this point cleaning up with the paintbrush instead of the eraser. This is a huge time saver. I never flip the tablet pen, it takes too long. Its much faster to eyerop the background and just paint along the edge to remove stray pencil lines.

If there is any glow like in the pic with both characters I’ll add another layer set to Color Dodge mode. Pick a big soft brush (with some texture to taste) and throw the opacity way down to like 15% and just dust it in.

The end!

For simple concepts I usually only have about 3 layers. Sketch, UP (under paint), and OP (overpaint). If I need multiples in any place it’ll look something like: Sketch, Sketch2, UP1, UP2, OP1, OP2, OP3, OPglow. That kind of thing. I find it much easier to navigate, I don’t waste time trying to be super organized because the layer count is so low.

Feel free to ask questions if you have em, I’d be happy to answer!

-AW

Get pumped.  The zaniest sports game you’ve ever played is on the horizon.

Hands down this is the wackiest, extremist, brawliest, funziest project we’ve ever concocted in our sinister laboratories!

Check it out:

If you can get behind wacky gladiatorial combat in a fast paced, free to play competitive environment, this game is for you!  That’s right, FREE TO PLAY.  You get all this madness for free.  You can just roll in it!  For free!  What, you ask, do you get?

These are just a few of the pile of exciting characters you’ll be able to recruit to your own SMASHMUCK team!  I’ll be posting some of the new arenas you’ll be fighting over in the near future.  In the meantime head over to http://www.facebook.com/smashmuck/ and Like what you see to stay up to date on the news and new concept and screenshot postings.  There are pics there you can’t get anywhere else!

Also, there will be beta keys there soon.  Shhhhhhhh, secret.  Tell only the people you really care about.

–AW

Super Hero Squad Online:  www.heroup.com

Check it out!  Neat Unity3d in browser MMO.  I do love me some X-Men, its like all of my childhood in one honeyed internet extravaganza.  Kid/Family friendly too, so it is extra-relevant to my interests.

Anyway, they just added a CCG in game.  This is the feedback I sent them:

The new card game system adds an interesting new dimension to SHS.  However, random damage and ‘lucky blocks’ really sap all the strategy out of the game and seemingly reduce it to dice the player cannot influence. 

It is not fun. 

I understand the intent is likely to reduce the disparity inherit in a strategy game based on player skill and the depth of each player’s card pool.  You are potentially dealing with a wide age range and that does require consideration.  There are already several cards in the game that boost damage based on other cards in the players deck, hand, or result of coin flips.  These cards add entropy to the game in way where the player can weigh the risk/reward of playing such a card.  They add a nice degree of tension, as opposed to wondering if you’ll simply get screwed everytime you lay a card down.

It is extremely frustrating to whittle down Dr. Octopus after a long game, deplete his hand and then throw the killing blow against a defenseless opponent only to have him ‘lucky block.’  Despite all my efforts as a player to win against a stacked opponent (greater deck size, starting ‘keepers’) my victory is snatched from me by sinister machinations I can’t see or impact. 

The ‘lucky block’ system really seems to overlook the fact that the game is already random based on the pre-game deck shuffle.  I certainly feel like I have lost games because I just couldn’t catch the cards I needed but that is to be expected in a CCG, and it is not something you expect to happen often so you are never too dissappointed.

I can imagine some game wide mutators could be added to keep changing the game if a high degree of entropy is really a design goal.  Mutators could alter power levels, change suits (blues count as purples), all Fantastic Four cards get a buff, etc.  There are a lot of options here.  If both players contribute a certain number of mutator cards to a neutral deck you’d still have a little control over your destiny but remain at the mercy of an additional neutral shuffle. 

This adds a whole layer of education and management the player has to wrangle but its not much denser than say bakugan and that’s right in this demo’s wheelhouse.  Alternatively they could just be location/arena/opponent based (or always the same for simplicity) and change anytime two tails appear in subsequent start-of-turn coin flips, something that keys off existing events.

I appreciate the time and wish you all continued success with the project.  Thanks.

 –AW

I got married. 

It took a while.

I didn’t post.

I was busy.

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I have horded art for a gargantuan post-a-thon though.

On the honeymoon I had a little time to flesh out the IP for a game I’ve been kicking around in my brain for a while.  For now I’m calling it ‘Hard Hats’ because the player is a construction worker of sorts.

Hard Hats Character #2

He’s a vast improvement over the first efforts which were a lot more naturalistic…

Hard Hats Character #1

I’ll model this guy today.  Or at least start, probably won’t get done as I’m not particularly fast. 

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Also chipping away at this guy when I can:

This is 50% res.  The painting is huge, I expect to spend a long long time working on it, but its totally worth it.  Really I have nothing in my folio that took longer than 24 man hours (I think the Witch is right around that).  Typically I’m too impatient to spend more time on something so we’ll see how this goes.

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More as it develops…

I always put the abbreviated year under the cross stroke (not sure what else to call it) in my signature.

So, I’m always struggling to date my doodles right around this time (had the same problem in school too).

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The mole Hero is coming together.

Here are a handful of color explorations.  Please comment the number you prefer.  If enough of you band together you might sway me. 

I’ve gone back and forth on the helmet/mask idea in my brain.  It offers the hero a little anonymity which lets the player project themselves more easily.  Conversely it makes an already clearly anthropomorphised rodent even more alien. 

He shares the same round sihlouette as the other moles and his complete lack of ears should keep him from blending in with the rats too much.  I’ll be trying other costumes without the full helm soon.

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I got an Airbrush Pen for my Wacom for Christmas.  It’s not a huge upgrade from the standard, but I do like having them both. 

The airbrush only features one button which you can bind in all the usual ways but also adds a Stylus Wheel.  The Wheel I’ve currently got rigged to flow which allows me even more control over application during the stroke. 

This is rad.

The more control you have the fewer strokes you need to make…

Ergo, you paint faster.

The stem is also bigger (being airbrush shaped), and much more ergonomic as a result.

INTUOS4 Airbrush Pen Average Rating: 0 total customer reviews...

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Bodypaint r12 will be here soon.

Then its going to get really good.

-AW