Rough alternative design

These are alternative designs that look different from my original.

3 stage of difficulties in 2 styles

The tutorial easy stage

Moving on to the medium stage, just like many other music games in harder stage there are more beats per minute. Also I also introduce one more fruit which is the banana.

Without any testing I already know that the hard stage is very super hard having high beats per minute as well as 5 fruits color. 

Easy

Medium

Hard

Thailand watching TV demographic

"69 percent of the youths watch TV programmes aired between 8 pm to midnight and their most favourite programmes are Thai soap operas; 47.3 percent prefer Thai and foreign movies; 37.8 percent cartoons and 18 percent news analysis; 17.5 percent for sports and 17 percent for variety shows."

From the information I have gathered, youths most watch TV program is Thai soap opera, and movie. So it is good to target these group first aiming the soap opera and movie target. However TV channel can have different logo or characters for different shows. They also can use same character for different shows but changing the clothing style and pose to give it a different character but also looks unify when put together.

"The survey also shows that most of this group of audience cannot remember the numbers of the channels they watch. The three most remembered channels are 7HD, 3HD and Channel 8."

From the survey it is good news that channel 3 is quite popular among the audience.

From this graph I can see that the air time of a show is not very important now, since 85% of people watched shows after. But for a TV channel it is important to make use of YouTube to get more views. People like to choose when they want to watch their favorite shows, they have more freedom that way and most household has got internet anyways.




From this graph it is clear that if they are going to use other website to show their shows after broadcast they need to make it compatible with smartphone size because smartphone takes up to 41% of device use to watch TV second only after digital TV.

http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/content/148601

Rebranding

Re branding is risky and it takes a lot of research to do. Before rebranding a company should consider these points.

1. Give your brand a story
2. Don't compromise brand equity
3. Stream line your identity
4. If it ain't broke, don't fix it
5. Revitalize to broaden your appeal
6. Don't re brand if you're just changing the name

https://assets.entrepreneur.com/article/1410363120-8-must-follow-rules-rebranding-company-infographic.jpg?_ga=1.99646042.559281613.1463406982

When we think about brand, it is not the logo, name, or the symbol. It is what the consumer think about the brand. “Before rebranding, analyze if you’re failing to reach your target market and why. Is your target market ignoring you or unaware of what you’re offering? In that case, you may have a perception problem, and rebranding can help.” says Chris Wechner

1. Influence and shape the brand with a series of brand promises. 
2. Obtain customer feedback.
3. Find out what's not working
4. Develop your story.
5. Spread through out all your company communications with the new brand.
6. Never stop supporting and promoting your brand.
7. Be consistent and persistent.
https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/7-steps-to-a-successful-rebrand/

Character design brief

Basically they just give information about the file size and no details on the character. So its basically freestyle on the character. They want it from three side front, side and back. The link is in Thai.

Channel 3 use to have a slogan คุ้มค่าทุกนาที ดูทีวีสีช่อง 3, it means every minute is worth it watching color channel 3.

Real problem in channel 3

Searching for channel 3 news
Channel 3 is going to broadcast football Euro 2016, channel 3 is the only free TV that will have Euro 2016. This could greatly increase viewers especially football fans target group. Channel 3 also broadcast the Thai woman's volleyball team 2016.

Sorayut leaving channel 3 one of the reason is from his corruption. Channel 3 popularity is greatly reduced by the loss of Sorayut. Sorayut is replaced by Na Nek, a very popular guy that appear in many shows.

Video tutorial of Fruitbeats

remove channel 3 logo

logo design for fruit beats

Watch tutorial on after effect

Practice and experiment on the effect.

My other youtube channel

These are thumbnails to for my Youtube video, note that I only design the fonts in each of them.

Changing brightness

I increase the brightness and the hue of the hole thing to make it more bright.

Answering questions

Questions from work check 1

Who is the game for? Its for people age from 10 to 30 both male and female. I think this is the main target group from students to adults all play games.While I was searching for the age group I made some research on these website I still haven't find the answer to it http://www.applift.com/blog/thai-mobile-games-market, http://www.slideshare.net/pisal1/thai-game-industry-overview, http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/700740/Newzoo_Casual_Connect_South_East_Asia_Games_Market_Report.pdf?t=1455179907663

What purpose and which platform? Purpose is entertainment, platform is on a mobile device. Due to most game company in Thailand is small and big games are just not an option. "Mobile currently makes up over 40% of all games revenue in Thailand, and this share is due to reach over 60% in 2017." applift

What about character personality and traits? Sun personality is bright, cheerful, outgoing, friendly but inconsiderate. Sometimes she forget to think about how others would feel for her action. She makes mistake and then she apologize. I was thinking about her personality but then I had to an in a negative part of her personality so that Sun feels more real and not too perfect.

Find ways in how you could design characters for the game instead?What I plan earlier was to use 4 matching colors, but then it wont relate to my character design so I made it to be 3 matching colors. I remove the 3 logo from Sun's head to put in into the game as a character not just for competition.

Work out the rewards system and goals. ?The reward system will be at the end of the song they play they will receive a random reward based on their performance. There is a theory I read that say random rewards is more powerful and addicting than a set awards. There will be three box and the player will choose one in which they will receive reward on the box they chose, then the side box will be shown to the players. Goals in this game is to collect all song, however as the stage of the game gets higher the harder it is as well. Player will have to clear a song or stage to move on to the next one.Think about levelsyes the levels from level one is the tutorial and then the game gets harder every level. This style of level is more similar to a match 3 games than a music game.

How does the audience engage with the game and visuals?Well this is almost like how do you play it. To play it players will have to swipe 3rows of the same color at the time the moving fruits hits the beat at the same time. The fruit will not blast itself when they are align by 3. Players can prepare the board by moving them around and slash them at the correct timing. There will be 3 color fruits total.

Will they be excited? If yes, how and why? This question I honestly can not say for sure unless we actually make a demo and test it out, games usually call it a close beta period where players can get in the game and make feedback to the developers on games improvement and bugs. From my experience mixing genre of games is exciting and if it had never been done then it will be even more excited. To increase the excited level we can use a good marketing strategy to help. 

But if you ask me if the players is going to have fun playing it? I can't say it unless we test it out for real.Those are the question from work check one. 

Here is some more question from Aj Jib1. 

You need to find a proper answer of how your design can be different from others? and how you design them?There are many things I design one is the game play another is the interface. First lets talk about the interface design I actually got my inspiration from fruit splash. The biggest different is the black bar on top. I design them by looking at many music games and by thinking what is going to look easiest to understand. The white line is use to help players understand the beat of the music better. Next part is the game play, it is different from my game to Fruit Splash. My game slash the fruit only when the beat matches with the color. I design this by combining two popular genre of game match 3 and music game. I used only 3 colors to match my character design, Sun has 3 colors RGB.

Saturation ajustment

After I talked to Chu I he said the colors are too dull, so I made some adjustment to make it more bright I increase the saturation on the water melon and blue berry.

Talk to someone who work on the gaming field

I talked to Chu about both game concept and the game interface design. For the game concept we had a discussion about the part of the game being both music and match 3. He said the idea is interesting. He had comment on the early design, he told me to think about the game rules like is there going to be a hit point, aka HP. He told me not to be lazy on my first draft and I should swap my fruits.

game design update

This one on top is the latest version of my design which I decide to only use 3 fruits for red, green and blue to match the colors of my character Sun. I also make the time line into 2layers so that players can have more time to prepare for the timing.

Sun's background

I use to think her background is not very important. But now I understand that background is use to help building the characters not for the players to read about.

Sun when she was young she is an ugly girl, she was short, dark skin, lonely and was a target of bullied. She grew up determine to change that in 5 years she, control her food, exercise, and face treatment. She also worked on her social skills, she got a lot of friends but she is still shy around boys. She became a model, then she got a job for being an actress. One day she eat fruits which are blue berry, water melon and strawberry. These are special fruits that give her a power to control colors of object, she can change any object into red, green, and blue. It is not a very useful ability because it is not meant to make her life easier in anyways, if she want to achieve something she has to work for it as much as other people.

Sun personality is bright, cheerful, outgoing, friendly but inconsiderate. Sometimes she forget to think about how others would feel for her action. She makes mistake and then she apologize.

Game doc

writing my game doc I decide to put important part in here.

The Game Overview

2.1. Gameplay Overview

The game will be played on mobile device. The game design is based on music game combine with puzzle match 3. We will swipe the match 3 when the beats reach the point. I will be using fruits as a match 3 so players can recognize quickly.

2.2. Game Features

The game will feature only single player where players play stage by stage and unlock harder stage each stage will have different songs or same song with different difficulty. The game stage one will start with a tutorial teaching a new gamer to learn the basics of the game. This game will feature similar to other popular games, it will connect to facebook or line. The game score will be ranked against their friends and players can invite their friends to gain gem. Gem is a paid currency. The game will feature daily rewards on every first songs they play. The rewards can be used to unlock new songs and any limited premium songs.

6. How to Play

 This is a big and important part. To play it players will have to swipe 3rows of the same color at the time the moving fruits hits the beat at the same time. The fruit will not blast itself when they are align by 3. Players can prepare the board by moving them around and slash them at the correct timing. There will be 6 color fruits total.

  

Draft 1

This is a first design on the looks note that the color will be in random position in the actual game. I have looked at many basic shapes and I decide to use fruits to replace the color match. As player we can relate more to what we have experience than something completely new, so my inspiration is from fruit ninja since I will also be using similar swipe animation and fruits but the gameplay is going to be completely different.

Study other games

Looking at many puzzle match 3 games I found one pattern. The fruits or candies have different shapes and color, this will help gamers to quickly distinguish shapes and color fast. So I decided to use fruits the match.

Looking at games like Taiko, how they have so much free space on the screen and using only a bit for the game part, I decided to have my game play on vertical.

I also had a look at some drum game but this doesn't seems to help.

I read Chu's essay

The essay basically talks about the reward and progression faction from what I understand and it is important to also give random rewards than a fixed rewards. With these things implemented it can help the game be more fun.

Aftereffect workshop

Last week I attend the aftereffect workshop, it reminded me of what I have learnt in Gabriel class and it is going to be useful in helping me working on my game trailer. I did some green screen and some cool graphics.

Contest winner

Contest winner Well they didn't say which type of style they want their character to be so I did what I am comfortable with and the winners look totally different style.

Finished work and sent and evaluation

I create short story for her and find name with good meaning that follow the concept. I send this in an email to them and they replied to me to confirmed.

If I had to evaluate my work, I think I could improve a bit more on the proportion, the heals and foot. I could have also included face in front and side because right now there is 3/4 view and back view. Not only that I think it will be good if I can show her face in different emotion. Like in one of my research on Inori Aizawa. The logo on the head is inspired from her.

And I also wanted to try a Chibi version of her. Chibi is a style that has big head and small body, it looks cuter and I think it will suit better for Line sticker.

On the date they say they will announce the winner 1 March got changed to 7.

Researching for my game

With my game being a mix of music and match 3 game I did some research on candy crush and other game that I can relate or can help in a certain ways. I have some experience being a music gamer, I like music game and I had intership for thailand top music game company, Thapster.

For now I will call it RGB tripple beats, maybe that is a bit too long I will think about the name later. Then I did research on the top game, the game that is still on the top of the list, which is also a match 3 type of game, its candy crush. Candy crush has made a lot of money using many evil methods which I wont be discussing here.

I have played all of these just to do some research on them.

Ok Fruit ninja , one of the early game. I like how it look and feels to slice of the fruits. So the swiping animation is inspired by this game.

Candy crush well since this game is still on the top of the chart I had to check it out, one thing I heard is that its not only skills required but also luck. Which means in some cases it is impossible to pass the stage without paying.

I just saw this game and the character catches my attention, I gave it a try and I liked the look of the bar on top that is moving. The gameplay itself after I played it for 30min I got bored.

Researching material

How to Draw Interesting Poses

I had a look at this for when I drew the back pose.

Coloring them all

This back pose took me quite a while to search for some references ended up finding nothing so I just went with something similar. Drawing heals in different angle is hard, especially the back.

It took me quite some time to figure out where should I put my RGB lights, then it still feels wrong then I put in some blur which is much better.

Like this pose the most it looks very lively.

Sketches on paper

I will show firstly my sketches on paper

This first version of back pose, looks too still, and its hard to tell the gender.

So I have changed the pose, this way it looks like she has some waist, her right leg looks a bit wrong so I fixed that in the computer later.

This is the early version of the sketch on the side view.

I made some changes on her hands and leg. The one above was too big.

Coloring Sun

Drawing references

Having the perfect faces matters the most so I did research on the important parts of the faces like hair, eyes, faces proportion.

I like the way he draw hair here, it looks simple but good.

On my youtube channel

Hair tutorial

I had a look at a few ways to draw hair. It took me a while to draw and redraw the hair.

tutorial_hair

Both have its pro and cons but I think I will be using this one.