Tenative concept.

After reading through Andrew Loomis' figure drawing book this evening, inspiration struck. Drawn to Life, with its sketchy art style, always appealed to me stylistically. It showed, to a point, different stages of drawing aside from the finished product; something I find very interesting as an artist.

Drawn to Life has multiple modes:

• Village mode: Interaction with buildings and NPCs takes place here. Displayed in top-down view, this area is the central hub for level access, item buying and story progression.
• Adventure mode: Side-scrolling platformer mode where battles take place. Players draw their own platforms in order to cross obstacles and defeat bosses in each zone/area.
• Draw mode: Where players design their own creations and bring them to life using the stylus/touch screen.

(Wikipedia, 2009)

Within Loomis' book, he introduces the mannikin frame on page 38, under the heading 'we begin to draw: first the mannikin frame'. The visual simpilicty of this frame was always something I found very appealing -- it enabled the artist to be able to express movement and form with very few lines.

I was keen to find a way to express this simplicity and form within the art style of my game. Eventually, the idea formed; a game wherein the player begins in the mannikin form, then advances to a more fleshed out, humanoid being as they make progress through dungeons and defeating bosses.

Concept:

• Set in a small village that becomes the safe zone hub mentioned in a previous post.
• Village is watched over by a guardian in the form of a tree, which is then corrupted by an invading evil.
• As a result of the tree's corruption, the inhabitants of the village and the village itself begins to lose form and mass, becoming close to Loomis' mannikin representation of people.
• Players must climb the floors of the tree, fighting in a hack-and-slash style through randomized dungeon floors toward bosses.
• When a boss is defeated, the village and the player character begin to move back toward their original forms.