This was my first game jam experience. I was an art director in this project. But as for many small teams, I needed to wear other hats and have additional responsibilities. The proposed theme of the game jam: “Smack the measures in the head and start the change. Make the dimensions of the universe fit your mind.”
I participated in brainstorming sessions with the team to find the best idea concerning the theme. We decided to base our game on the Enso meditation ritual. It derives from the Zen school of thought. When we made this decision, we distributed the workload between team members. I created a mood board for artists and developers to make them comprehend how the game feels.
Then we had design sessions with the designer and developers. I had some design ideas because I had learned game design on online platforms as a priori. We chose a high-score system design for the game, and the player had to control a cherry blossom inside an Enso sign. Meanwhile, the players must have avoided hitting the borders of the Enso by controlling the size and the movement direction of the cherry blossom.
As a result, the whole team began testing their ideas, and we started the prototyping phase. I designed the start page with one of our other artists. I am responsible for the logotype design on this page.
I also prepared wireframes for the development team. In these wireframes, I tried to demonstrate the user interaction flow in the game and decided how many pages the game needed. I created these wireframes using Balsamiq.
After we all agreed on the player's interaction flow, I designed icons and background assets and chose font styles for different pages.
Meanwhile, I was helping the development team to figure out how the levels work. For this purpose, I collaborated with one of the artists to develop the levels visually and lent a hand to the developer to help him understand the props and the level's difficulty better. I illustrated my conceptual vision for the level design and prop design, then handed these designs to artists and developers for further development.
Putting these props together inside an Enso will result in different levels with different difficulties. We also have decided to build a speed mode for the game called Zen mode. In this mode, the player will not face any challenging obstacles for a short period.
I created a design document at this phase, then handed it, alongside these illustrations, to the development and art team. You can see the result in the image above. This image is taken from the inside of the game.