The Unfortunate Adventures of Rox Willful is quite an atypical game in our academic context, largely due to its genre and narrative style. This unique project leads the team to surpass themselves and explore new avenues not usually undertaken by those in our program.

Modeling

We have to reconstruct 2D concepts, defined by their cartoon proportions and treatment and transform them into 3D models without losing their essence, which is significantly more difficult than if we simply went with a realistic approach.

Animation

• The anatomies of our characters are quite varied, therefore complicated to rig: two humanoids in a mech suit, a character with four arms, or with a big backpack as well as many accessories, for example.
• The animators have to follow a specific style of animation, particularly for Rox since she is animated by two different artists in collaboration.
• Through the use of facial animation during dialogues as well as a long opening cinematic, it’s also an opportunity for us to focus on performance rather than simply gameplay-related animation.

Special Effects

For particle effects, we are working to find a style closer to traditional animation than to realistic simulation. We also have to successfully integrate these effects alongside our 2D images and 3D models.

Collaborative approach to Game Design

The narrative side of the game leads to a close collaboration between game designer and writer. Indeed, the gameplay should support the story, but the story needs to hold up on its own and be enjoyable to play through.

The design of this genre of video game also requires a lot of attention to player feedback, as well as an awareness of the visual signs to give the player so that he understands the tools at his disposal. This of course means a substantial amount of iterations and playtesting.