Everything started with this sketch, I was either going to design something more fantastic or something more like sci-fi.
The idea was a game about a farmer and a little girl fighting against the orange people and meeting a robot. The main focus was giving a message about nature but also the idea of family.
By generating ideas over different games, I found the perfect balance for the idea that I used in the game for my part. By combining
ideas in my head, I prepared my ideas to combine with my group members.
That time I also found my old project in 2018, which is also about protecting nature too. It also helped with the design of the Poko.
Making players feel sympathy towards our main characters sounded good until I decided to make it more focused on empathy with our main character.
I take with a few of my friends who like apocalyptic games and mainly they said that playing as a young girl in a big world with small creepy twists might be more effective on the player since they will gain empathy and feel kinda scared and make it personal but also they will feel a operate empathy towards to our character.
Her design needed to be simple and memorable. The colour combination of orange and white gives a futuristic look while the purple twist gives it more energy.
In the first sketches, she had a hamster companion which we can use as a separate character to solve the puzzles. With that she also needed a helmet and a bubble-like elastic helmet would add enough movement to our simple design.
In the design process, the body proportions changed more than once. As you can see in the first sketch she is taller and her head is a bit smaller than the current one. She also has fingers and a more detailed sketch. The hamster also changed but at first, the seed was a hamster.
This is the finished design of the Poko.
In the sketch, we can see the details of her clothing such as the bubble which is the most important one to get protected by the purple gas and not to get poisoned or gloves since she is a farmer.
Understanding Poko and imagining how she moves, acts or reacts was another challenge.
Before animating her, I decided on the mainframes and her proportions, the sizes can change since she is a jiggly and soft character but mainly her body is nearly the same size as her head or a little bit longer.
She is fat, chubby, and soft but always looks angry. This young girl had a high amount of emotion on her face so matching the energy of the body in animation was important.
My references were characters like "Red" from Angry Birds, "Blossom" and "Buttercup" from Powerpuff Girls, "Kim Possible", and "Little Suzy" from Jhonny Bravo, with their brave nature.
I also looked into Dark crystal for the general concept of Orange People as Skeksises.
You can also see the effects of the movie: 5th Elemeth in the general concept of the game but also on Poko too
The first evil character I designed was about the Oil level. My designs were cute but with the help of my teammate by combining our styles, we designed our monsters in a more creepy way.
Mutant biological evil creatures created by
oil and giving them an extra layer was the first
idea. They are created by orange people from oil to "help".
After getting into our teams and designing the controllers and the mechanics we decided to change the hamster into a seed and give it an ability to grow. We also decided to give Poko different variations.
The most logical thing to do about these kinds of powers will be to gain them through the journey so the player can feel like they are upgrading or developing their character.
This was the sketch of the seed's grown form.
Poko will have three forms in these three levels of the game. In the first level, we will get our grass abilities which will help us to navigate through the parkour and control the seed.
Talking orchids will be on the first level and we will help to save their homes from the orange people.
I designed them for the Kew Gardens tour.
Polo will help them defeat the Metal Tree and save the Talking Orchids Valley while defeating the Deforestation Level.
I mainly liked focusing on good characters since my style was a bit more suitable.
(illustrator, photoshop and pixel version or the orchid lady.)
We changed the fire version of Poko to electric since it sounds more nature-friendly. ( Using electricity rather than petrol and gas)
In the second level, we will see a Racoon kid and help him with the solution and in the third level, we will help the giant salamander with the oil and fossil fuels and save his home.
At the end of the 3 levels, we will get to the top and fight with the orange people.
(ink)
(watercolour)
To understand her design better, I used different mediums and tools and tried to visualise my ideas as much as I could.
(storyboarding for the intro of the game.)
After this part, we will see our first level.
Originally Poko will start from the bubble so we will see the cracks on the bubble, we will go into a cave where we learn about the mechanics fully but also collect the 3 pieces of the key for the transportation machine to go to the upper city.
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