[26 September 2023]

Hello everyone, welcome to our first Devlog for Joseph Kills Lucy! This is a game that we are developing as our thesis project. 

Our aim is to make a game with audio and music as the central focus, thus affecting every other part of its design . Not only does the player play as a member of a grunge band, but the theme of music also feeds into other major aspects such as the art assets, the combat mechanics, the UX and UI, and such. 

 We started out with only one thing: we knew that we wanted to make a rhythm game. This isn’t just because all four of us have a background in music, but we also want to capture the enjoyment and replayability of rhythm games, as if they are their own pieces of music. We also think that making the game music-themed adds approachability for newer players who are maybe not as familiar with games, let alone ones that jump straight into combat.  

 The core mechanic of Joseph Kills Lucy is to perform combos or “chords” to the beat of the song. This occurs in combat – after each successful chord, the boss will slowly lose health until it is defeated.

Visual Development - Hedy Fu

Character Design

Joseph Kills Lucy was established to be a pop grunge game. Keeping both the musical genre in mind, as well as the original concept of the band member being a member of an emo band, I created 3 initial drafts for different possible designs for the protagonist. Referring to character sketches A, B, and C, I drafted not only what they could look like, but also different styles and rendering possibilities. Character A was more of a punk grunge character with an explosive/spiky appearance to match the upbeat genre of the music. Character B was more of a snazzy jazz character in case we wanted to explore a mixture of 8-bit music and jazz, which was part of the initial mood boarding of music that we explored. Character C was meant to be representative of a universally recognizable emo stereotype, with the dark palette and more reclusive body language. The characters are designed to be androgynous, creating a more inclusive immersive experience based on whoever is playing to somewhat project themselves into role playing. 

The final character, style, and rendering chosen was Character A2b.  I started exploring colours. Initially I tested more vibrant colours to match the upbeat feel of the music moodboard as well as taking inspiration from cyberpunk, where punk can still be visually neon and not just pure darkness. I also wanted it to take on the pop elements of vibrant, appealing commercial art. However, that made the designs not feel grunge at all; it felt merely like pop. So I threw in some dark colours to create more of a contrast. The team put in the input of enjoying the neon greens and pink juxtaposed to the dark colours. However, something still did not feel punk enough so I changed the clothing design of the character. Part of the design challenge was to not overcomplicate the design that 3D modelling will be insanely difficult, so I played with primitive shadings of the clothes with some smaller details that can be incorporated through texturing/painting. 

For the first boss (Joseph the Tour Bus), I used the main character’s colour palette but darkened and desaturated it slightly. This way, it is somewhat cohesive, but doesn’t overtake the character entirely. I referenced real tour buses and played with bus parts to anthropomorphize the features. I also adjusted it to be more angry to assert more aggression due to the fast chaotic beat of the music. 

Prop & Environment Design

Using the final desired colour palette of neon pink, neon green, and black, I moved onto design three possible designs of the guitars. I wanted them to be modelled after electric guitars because of the music Roann composed contraint some electronic audio. I also wanted to add some spike hardware to create more dimension and interest in the guitar. 

Moving onto environment prop design, the team agreed on multi-perspective for the camera to fully play with the idea of merging 2D and 3D components. The first boss fight will take place at an intersection, which made me imagine a downtown environment. But with a dystopian twist as the world is somewhat set in an otherworldly environment as well as the concept for grunge to be somewhat chaotic. The prop designs and buildings are all run down and variants of greens/reds to match the protagonist, but dulled down so that the character will stand out with the boss. The other purpose for the separate colour palette for the boss  and the environment was meant to create that “me against the world”  concept. This is especially important because the character is supposed to be in a dream world that seems to be hostile against  them, and that the character does not belong there. That is why I was careful not to use any neon pinks in the environment and the same shade of neon green as Lucy.