Lunata Rescue
A 2D indie adventure mobile game about little bugs facing a big journey.
Lunata Rescue
A 2D indie adventure mobile game about little bugs facing a big journey.
Lunata Rescue
A 2D indie adventure game about little bugs facing dangerous challenges.
Lunata Rescue brings back the classic platform style, adding new elements to tradicional concepts. In this adventure, Lunata is a small treehopper insect on a journey to rescue all lost babies from his colony, captured by the evil Queen Donatella.
This was a project developed for iOS, Android and Windows Phone by Insignia Games, an independent Brazilian game studio in Florianópolis.
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This was the first digital project I worked on. When I joined the company in 2010 the team was still being formed and the idea was still being conceived, so I worked on the entire visual side of the project from scratch.
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I was the only designer/artist, and I had a lot of freedom to create the whole look of the game. I became responsible for creating all the visual design, starting with the characters, then the level design, the scenarios, animations, navigation flow, Interfaces, itens, icons, HUD, interactions, logo, promotional prints, video and more.
Why a game based on an insect?
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The treehoppers, more specifically the membracis foliata or membracis lunata, are common insects in some areas of Brazil, mainly in places close to the forests. They are a kind of insect whose shape is so fantastic, fun and different that it attracts the curiosity of children.
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I was one of those children, I called them "little pirates", because they reminded me of ships with black sails. Other kids called them "little soldiers" because it looks like they're wearing helmets. Kleber Seixas, the CEO of Insignias Games, also has good memories of this little bugs in his childhood, so this is why he created the game with this theme. This was something new, no one had ever explored a treehopper as a main character.
Characters Design
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My challenge as a character designer was: How to transform an insect into an adventure game hero with a design that appeals to both boys and girls? And my biggest challenge in this project was: How to design the baby characters to be cute based on the "non-cute real babies" of these insects?
The protagonist characters are the most important thing for this game project, so we started the project by designing them and, based on that, we would decide the graphic style of the whole game. So, I started a process based on:​
With the protagonists' design defined, Lunata and Baby Lunata, it was easy to create the other characters following the same style. Between protagonists, enemies and other support characters, we have developed about 12 little characters with diferente visual identities, archetypes and mechanics. All Characters are based on insects from tropical forests.
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To face ants, crickets, wasps and spiders, Lunata uses some collectible items that give him superpowers or some fruit, called guarana, which she shoots to stun enemies.
Animations
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Almost all the animations were drawn frame by frame. For the protagonist, for example, there are more than 200 frames to compose all his animations. We create animations for each interaction with the characters and even create several animations for when the player doesn't interact with the protagonist, for example, if the player leaves the Lunata idle, he can chew gum or take a nap.
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Animating an insect character in a functional way for a platform game, giving it charisma, was another interesting challenge that I faced in this project. I had never created animations for a game before, and in the end I really liked the results.
Scenarios
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Each scenario is unique. In this project, we tray not to reuse assets to compose the diferente phases. Almost all elements have been designed for a single scenario. The scenarios were Forest, Farm, Riverside, Town Square, Desert and Anthill (like a catacomb cave). Each scenario also had a variant at night for a different and more challenging game mode.
HUD and Controls
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We designed a HUD (Heads-Up Display) showing all the necessary information for the player and nothing else, trying to provide a clearer and more immersive experience with the resources we had. We also try to make the controls as visually discreet as possible in areas of the screen where the character almost never goes so that the character and buttons don't overlap.
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For iPad and tablets in general, due to the size and weight of these devices and also due to the variation of hand sizes between adults and children and the way each prefers to hold their tablet, we see the need to have adjustable controls, so that the player could change the size and position of the buttons to make them more comfortable.
Why is being a designer/artist so fantastic?
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Working at Insignia Games, I participated in game events where we presented Lunata Rescue to our audience. At these events, I was always surprised to see how excited people were and how challenged they felt when playing our game.
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At one of these events a fantastic thing happened. In addition to our main game, we were testing another game from the Lunata universe with puzzles and drawing tools for kids. Two little boys tested our products. They played with our iPad drawing app and they could draw anything in this app, but they spent a lot of time drawing Lunata Ninja and Lunata Rocket fanarts.
I keep these drawings with great care, as they are proof that designing a product is not just about building something that technologically works, it is about impacting lives and providing good times. I believe that, somehow, those kids felt inspired and felt part of the Lunata game. Maybe they even become designers or developers.
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It is fantastic to see our work going beyond the screens and impacting real lives in some way. This is what engages me. This is what every design project should be about.
Working with the full support of great people around
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Even being the only designer of the team, I had the support, help and feedback of the entire team. This was a very collaborative project. So all these design/art results are also the merits of Kleber Seixas (CEO and Game Designer), Robson Siebel and Ycaro Weschefelder (Games Developers). Thanks guys!
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I am very grateful to everyone who participated in some way, like supporting the team, testing the game and sharing feedback.
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Special thanks to Bruno Garcia Alvares who allowed me to use his photos of the real insects to complement this part of my portfolio.
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And thanks to you, who are visiting this portfolio and getting know a little more about Lunata and me.