Sorry, We Have a Policy
Working alongside Unseelie Collective for the Trans Gal Jam 2022, we built a game that was a cynical take on British healthcare. For the project I concepted the character outfits, designed the backgrounds and all of the UI elements.
The game is available at: https://unseelie-collective.itch.io/swhap
Sorry, We Have a Policy - Release Trailer
Character Outfit Designs
The concepts for each of the characters present in the game. As the final designs of each character would be done in pixel art, each outfit was designed to be relatively simple with large blocks of colour. The first 8 concepts are for characters in the queue screen, while the last four are NPCs the player interacts with during dialogue.
The concepts were then handed to co-artist Shanna Lowrie-Maxwell, who did the pixel art versions, and the various animations for each one.
Environment Designs
The designs for each of the five backgrounds present in the game. The first is the queue background, the screen the player will spend the majority of the game in. The four smaller backgrounds are each of the office environments they can reach, to have dialogue and progress in the game.
Each background went through the same design process, going from a wireframe, to a rough concept sketched over that, before being taken in Aseprite to design the pixel art versions. They were then upscaled and given some subtle post-processing in Procreate, to add lighting and shadows.
Game User Interface
The various pieces of graphic design and UI present in the game. The first image shows the variety of different assets designed for the games menu, each done similarly to the backgrounds in that they started as pixel art, where upscaled and then given a light amount of post-processing.
The second image shows the dialogue interface, visible when the player reaches one of the office screens. The two contrasting colours were chosen to make it clear whether the player character or an NPC is speaking.
The two GIFs below showcase the defeat and victory end screen wipes. The screen originally simply faded to black, but I thought given the pixel aesthetic of the rest of the game, including the grid pattern would give it more visual interest, whilst not being distracting.
Minigame User Interface
As well as the main game mechanic of advancing through the queue, a few minigames were added to the game, acting as a distraction to attempt to make the player miss the QTE prompts. These included several newspapers (based upon actual articles found in British tabloids), which would contain information that the player would then have to input onto the phone when it rings, using an old-fashioned keypad against the clock.
A wordsearch was also chose for the other distraction, as they are relatively simple, but would have the player focus on them enough that they might lose their place in the queue.
Webpage Design
The game jam itself was hosted on Itch.io, so I was also tasked with designing assets for the webpage, kept in a similar style as the game itself to give a sense of immersion.
The middle of the page background, which is meant to give off the impression of old fax paper, is a separate asset from the rest of the background, allowing it to move independently from the tiled pattern as the viewer scrolls further down the page.
