Ruined: Looking Back Part 2

This is the second entry in a series of reflections on my favorite project, Ruined. Think of it as the team looking in the mirror… and then taking a picture, and showing it to everyone on the Internet.

Today, we will focus on my area of expertise (or at least what I did for this game)...Graphics!
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It's been a while! The last time I did one of these reflection things, we had basically just finished Ruined. Now, don't for a second think that it's been too long since development, and I can't remember the development process for this game. Wrong.

So, one could argue that the most important graphic in a game is the main character. It should be iconic, loveable, and should be symbolic of the character. Our main character is Alec. He is very tiny.

This is Alec. Look at him. LOOK AT HIM!

So you're probably wondering, "why does this main character suck so much?" Well, that's a funny story, and it'll probably make me look lazy. But for the sake of this blog I will tell you anyway.

There's something you should know. At first, before we started developing, I wasn't so excited to make Ruined. That isn't to say that I didn't want to make it. We were coming up with ideas for a YoYo Games competition, and I thought that it was better to make a smaller project and spend most of our time polishing it. But nonetheless we began making Ruined (and it's a good thing we did.)

Anyway, point is, I made Alec thinking that it was a possibility that this game wouldn't be finished. So that's why it isn't the greatest looking graphic in the world.

Moving on, one of the things you'll notice about the art is that it's based on Knytt Stories' graphics. When I think about that game, I think about the environment. The game gives you a feeling... its environments are constantly changing, changing your moods, but you're always having fun.

So in terms of the tiles and such in the game I just tried to keep it simple and make a "mood". And I don't really know how I tried to do that. I think the sky is really awesome; I can't really take much credit because I just took the colors from a photo of the desert. It looks really good with the desert tile.

Fun, fun, fun.

I think the four different environments (temple, underground, sky, and of course the desert) are all memorable. I also think that they have their own properties beyond the actual pixels. The have a color, a memory, a mood, a feeling.

So people, yes, the graphics in the game aren't too impressive. Christian is the one who made the game the awesome one it is. But I do think that the graphics fit perfectly in the game; it wouldn't be Ruined without the graphics it currently has.

Thanks for reading.