Art Direction / Task 2

23/04/25 - 08/06/2025 / Week 1 - Week 7
Iman binti Kamarudin / 0364014
Art Direction / Bachelors of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Task 2

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LECTURE

Week 5

This week, we finally settled on what game we want to redesign; Fun Run 4. We discussed how we could change it and decided to go for a horror theme. From there, we each gathered our own references.

Settings & Influences

Determine the visual pillars in your production by looking at the central theme of the game

Refer to the Genre-Style list

Lighting & Post-processing

Lighting and post-processing helps to give believable depth to the environment design and encouraging immersion for the players

Ambient Lighting

Selections for the color palette will be driven by the ambient lighting rather than the material color

To create the right mood for the player

UI/UX Color Palette

Avoid distracting high contrast but rather aim towards a comfortable scheme that blends with the game, but clear enough to indicate interactions for the players to take notice of

Game UI Design & Layout

Should be consistent in how players operates actions, interacts with certain stuff

Colors and space should be unified

Character Design

Shape language is the key in designing characters, objects and environments

Work with signature colours and size combinations

Value pattern (low and high contrast) help to create boundaries and contrast helps to define shapes

Silhouette should be clearly identifiable at first glance

Week 6

This week we worked on our presentation slides and compiled references for the environment, ambience, ui/ux and character design.

Week 7

This week we had our presentation for our proposal. After consulting we also made rough sketches for the environment, UI/UX and character design to include in the submission.

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INSTRUCTIONS

TASK 2

Take an existing game and change the art direction into something new. Could be a sequel or a completely new game.

- Only redesign the crucial screens

- Can expand on the lore of the game

Output Expectations:

- Environment Design

- Character Design

- Game UI/UX

Week 1 To-Do:

- Find a game to propose to your group

- Consider limitations for the group and feasibility of redesigning

- Suggested to choose something simple to make it look nicer

The game that I proposed to redesign was Fun Run 4. We ended up choosing it as there was more potential and the workload wouldn't be too heavy. We decided to flip the genre into horror and everyone compiled their own references for the redesign.

Fig 1.1 - Fun Run 4 Analysis

Fig 1.2 - Compiled References

The references that I added were more eerie and had a desaturated colour palette. I imagined the environment to be really foggy and moody. In terms of character design, I liked the idea of having the proportions of the characters be more lanky but still cartoon-ish. The UI/UX design could be scrap paper for the button backgrounds. 

The idea was that the characters were kidnapped and forced to race eachother for the entertainment of their captors and they only had scrap paper in their 'holding place' (some kind of basement/room/dorm).

Fig 1.3 - Keywords, Environment and Story References

Fig 1.4 - Character Design, UI/UX References

Week 5 To-Do:

- Selected Game

- References

- Visual Direction

The team had a meeting to finalise our proposal idea and worked on our slides for our presentation. We also decided on which aspect of the redesign we wanted to work on and delegated our tasks according to that.

Fig 1.5 - Team Delegation

Since the idea we were leaning on were about teenagers being kidnapped, I chose to find references for more rugged/scrapped UI/UX design. In my head, I was imagining that the characters only had paper and pencils in their confinement and it would fit the theme more than if the UI was very polished and clean.

FINAL

Fig 2.1 - Final Proposal Slides

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REFLECTION

Overall, this task was fine. I really like thinking about new storylines or revamping existing games however it was a little difficult thinking about the rational logic behind the characters and setting. In terms of my experience with the team, it was alright. I do wish that there was more communication from the other members during meetings and whether or not they would be showing up for said meetings but alas, that is just how life is sometimes.

Brainstorming was really fun for me and I was really excited to work on a mature and dark theme. I'm going to be honest and say that I was a little stumped in terms of the UI design since it was meant to be a sort of gothic/victorian theme but our characters weren't posh or very cleaned up as they're meant to be captives.

Aside from the obvious issues of working in a group, the task went pretty well!