by gameblogbyaderlund

Blog 2: Honey explosion

Hi!

This week I’ve been working on the animation for the honey ball explosion!

Since I didn’t write much about the game last time, I will do it in this blog post so you get a better understanding on what the game is about. So, your beehive is under attack by a hungry bear, so you and your swarm of bees need to get back to the beehive as soon as possible to chase the bear away. Along the way to the beehive you encounter different obstacles in form of insects like flies, spiders, wasps and dragonflies. In order to get past them you either need to avoid colliding with them or you need to shoot them down with honey balls. So, when these honey balls hit the target there will be an “explosion” effect. This is an effect we want to include in the game to give the player feedback when she has hit a target, and also to make the game visually more interesting.

First attempt 
I have never made an animation of an explosion before so I thought this would be hard to do. My first attempt of making the honey explosion ended up being too “realistic” in my opinion and it didn’t feel very interesting or fitting for the art style in our game. Without any references I tried to picture how honey would behave when hitting something. I made the animation in photoshop, using video layers, and drew the animation straight ahead. Although this could work, I wasn’t satisfied with the results so I started all over.

 

bee_splash

First attempt of the honey explosion

Second attempt
After having a lecture about animation, creating sprite sheets, and how you can animate explosions, I got a few tips on how I could make a better explosion for our game.
Even though I think it became more interesting than my first explosion, it still looked too realistic and didn’t fit to our game. Also, I think it looked more like amber than honey.

 

 

honey_impact1

Second attempt of the honey explosion

Before moving on to the next attempt, I wanted to make sure the honey projectile would match the explosion animation. So, I made a color scheme for the honey and set the art style for it. And before making the explosion I made the honey ball projectile.

honey_ball4

Honey ball projectile

Third attempt
It was a challenge to create an explosion made of honey. But after using reference images of honey and sprite sheets of explosions, I got a lot of tips and inspiration. This time I made it more cartoony by using brighter colors, exaggerated shapes and different hues in the frames. Our current honey explosion looks like the one shown below, but there might be changes later on if the group feels that it isn’t exaggerated enough. I think it would be fun to make slightly different explosion to make the game more dynamic, but that might be a stretch goal.

honey_impact2.2.gif

Our current honey explosion

 

honey_impact2_sheet.png

Sprite sheet of the explosion

 

2 Comments

  1. Starting the blog entry with the goal you set out for the sprint is an excellent way of conveying what you are going to write about. Likewise, the explanation of the game’s premise is quite clear and very appreciated, as it helps one understand the key elements of the gameplay.

    In the first paragraph you mention that you wanted to introduce the honey explosion as a feedback mechanism for the player to understand the consequences of his actions. This, even though one could think it goes without saying, is a very important reflection and something to keep in mind when designing gameplay elements.

    For your third attempt you mention researching reference images of honey and specifically other sprite sheets of explosions, as well as acknowledging the time investment further polish of the asset would imply. You also explain which tools and methods you used to produce the different animations, and present examples of your iterative process as well as insights into the thought process during that production. All of this paired with the decision you made to create a colour palette and define an art style early on are good signs of an efficient and thought through workflow.

    As a final thought, I would recommend introducing some deformation similar to the original explosion animation as a trail to the honey ball projectile, as the player will never see it in its static form and it may look slightly uncanny in its current implementation.

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