Side Scroller: Idea Generation and Concept Creation

Initially the Cold Level Team all started out on idea generation, images and inspiration were gathered into a 600+ image mood board before we isolated several ideas and honed in on a few. At first we wanted to steer away from the more usual depictions of cold especially with Disney’s Frozen as prevalent as it was. 

A mood board and colour scheme was produced for each idea

We looked into the potential of an ice palace with a Middle Eastern architecture theme rather than a European one. We looked at everything from the cold recesses of space – ultimately abandoned because of the lack of potential to make as an interesting side scroller in the time we have – to cold foods like ice-cream. At the time the style guide started to be made we'd settled on a snowbound castle in a style reminiscent of Persian architecture.

initial sketches were very linear and flat in terms of gameplay

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In the end it was the theme of pilgrimage from the other levels that influenced our final choices; what had been an abandoned palace became a mountaintop shrine and quickly became a statue carved into a mountain as it was easier to link it with the happy and scary levels.

Over the course of development some areas were exaggerated and some lost; the statue grew to cover nearly half the level and the surrounding structure was abandoned in favor of the mountain behind. Areas like the caver and the mountain to the statue's right were elaborated upon after discussion about utilizing space. The mountain was modified to contain a cave and the lower cave was to stretch back into the mountain to create a sense of depth that the level had been slightly lacking in. Adding a deeper section of the mountain made it feel less flat.

the quick sketch of gameplay and platforming elements

Platforming elements and gameplay were also added in at this stage. The bell was added, who's chime when hit by the player would make the statue hands begin to move. Things like special collectables (shown above as stars) as well as killbox placement were pencilled in at this time and we had a lot of fun moving around items to get the best out of the space. I'm particularly fond of the cogs that send you back to the save point when you get trapped between or underneath them.

Colour variations 

Once we'd worked out the basic layout the environment artists moved onto whiteboxing while I worked on more finished concepts of the level and it's elements. It was particularly challenging to stop the level becoming monochromatic; the colour scheme was mainly black, white and blue in order to maintain the feeling of cold. Adding purple hues not only added depth to the colours but it also linked the level with the levels before and after. 

It was during this stage that we decided on the cave layout; though when the amount of the level being finished to benchmark changed, the assets were moved to the top of the mountain in order to showcase the asset.

First Final concept

The first rush of idea generating at the start of concepting is always my favorite. I've always enjoyed doing the initial sketches.