Assets and Backgrounds

OVERVIEW

I was responsible for Bamboo and Teahouse blocks, and some blocks in Pond and Mountain.

Bamboo, Teahouse, and Pond's backgrounds were also illustrated by me. (Progress can be seen here!)

You may use the table of contents to the right to access this page easier!

BLOCKS

TEAHOUSE

The Teahouse region consists of 13 blocks inspired by japanese household furniture such as tatami mats, kokatsu, and floor cushions.
A few welcoming (yet chaotic) residents keep this house in check, though not without the presence of their favorite Wagashi sweets.

One of those residents is Wub. There are two Wubs, a lazy one and a busy one who takes care of the foliage.

Then there's the rat infestation - no, it's not a bad invasion! They actually rent a space with the Wubs. They also scramble to make the place look presentable.

Perhaps it's for naught, however. They don't know a thing or two about interior decorating, and they leave snacks all over the place.

But is any house really fun without some element of chaos to it? I guess we'll find out when we attend their housewarming party sometime in the future...
Kuru had a color scheme that was similar and shared with Wubs and rats, and I felt like that made them fit like friends in the beginning. I felt it was a very approachable representation for the first region of the game.

Wubs was also illustrated with Lilypad shaped spots to foreshadow the Pond region that was initially planned to be the second region of the game. However, Pond was finalized to be the third region.

BAMBOO

POND

BACKGROUNDS

I was responsible for the Pond, Bamboo, and Teahouse backgrounds for KURU -

Working with the backgrounds in this game were deceivingly tough.
Do we stick with the realism and match the perspective of our backgrounds with the perspective of our blocks?

Or do we always go with a Top-down perspective and ignore the perspective of our blocks for the sake of consistency?

The former was a lot more appealing to me when I first started as it seemed unique, but working towards making it look not awkward took a bit longer than expected.

UI

Creating the right icon for each region was a little interesting. A lot of our regions have some sort of overlap: Foliage in Pond, Bamboo, and Teahouse; Water in Pond and Bamboo; Man-made structures in Bamboo, Teahouse, and Shrine.
Mountain was obviously the more prominent and easily distinguishable shape: it was all up to how much of mountains we wanted to see.

I wanted to make my UI "modular" such that parts of each icon can be switched around due to overlapping features

COLOR TESTS

To get a better sense with how it was going to fit with the game, we have to compare how these icons look with the brown ink vs. the white ink: Not only should they fit with the scroll-type graphics of our game, but it should also fit with the backgrounds!

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