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.
Yokai Mask
An award-winning game project at Cyprus Game Jam 2017.
In the 2017 Cyprus Game Jam, participants had a weekend to create a game with the theme "Japan". Avoiding more common approaches such as “ninjas" and "samurais", my friend Robson and I teamed up and chose to work with yokai folk masks for our game design and storytelling.
Even though this was a brief project, our focus was crafting a narrative to evoke player empathy, alongside designing a game mechanic consistent with the storytelling.
Characters Design
To tell the story we had in mind, without time to develop cutscenes or any complex storytelling, we tried to tell as much as possible through the design of our main character.
Our goal was for players to quickly sense, at a glance, that our protagonist is a little girl in an Asian context and, for some reason, she is currently unhappy. She once had a cozy and warm life, but something changed, and now she's navigating difficult times on a journey through darkness.
With just a few shapes, lines and colors, we wanted to make her a delicate and cute character, but one that also expresses a lot of strength and determination.
Character Design and Visual Choices
Rounded shapes: to emphasize that the character is "charismatic" and “delicate”.
Shape contrast: whenever possible, I "interrupted" the rounded shapes by using "sharp shapes" or some cross hatching to represent that the character is suffering, she is hurt and tired physically and emotionally. There is pain and discomfort afflicting her.
Colors: the main character's colors are light, creating a contrast with the black lines and dark background. Additionally, the colors are desaturated to accentuate the "worn" state of her clothes and mood and also minimize the sense of "joy" and "vivacity".
Outline organic and irregular: I played with black lines, varying the thickness and interrupting the continuity of the line a few times to evoke the essence of oriental handcrafted art and calligraphy.
Contrast and Conflict: To underscore that the story involves a kind of unexpected and conflicting event, and to highlight the maturity the protagonist must assume prematurely in the face of certain suffering, we designed her as a young girl, typically expected to exude cuteness and innocence, but that in this case, carries a strong expression of determination while wearing demon masks.
Game Mechanics
This game combines platform, action, and puzzle mechanics.
In it, our protagonist journeys through a graveyard haunted by Yokais. The demons attack the little girl, devouring the fire from her lantern and preventing her from moving forward.
Her goal is to reach the end of the level before the lantern fire is extinguished. To achieve this, she must avoid and outsmart the Yokai. Wearing Yokai Masks allows her to trick the demons – those of the same color perceive her as one of their own and move away, while those of different colors persist in attacking.
But why is she in this dark place and carrying a lantern? Well, she has a very special reason, and the next image reveals how the story concludes.
It was truly great to spend the weekend working on this project and see people playing this short game in the end. I'm immensely grateful to my team, Robson Siebel and Kalia Aristidou, who embraced the challenge, and I'm also grateful to the Cyprus Game Jam!
After all... we won 🏆 second place!