Journey of a Game Designer

Stories can have a lot of different themes: Rebellion against fate, a love that conquers all and more. But the majority of stories have one theme in common: growing up. It has been done good, it has been done horribly wrong, but it still captures the heards of it's readers, watchers and listeners. But why? I mean, I see a lot of brats around me every day, and I swear some of them grow about my height in one day! Well, that's not the growing up that is meant. It's a creature growing up emotionally, accepting the consequences of their doing. Growing up is a change so mesmerizing, we can't help but watch. What kind of person will await us at the end of the transformation? This is what Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is in it's core: A story about a young boy growing up, beginnig with a fateful encounter. What is XenobladeChronicles 2 about? Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is about a boy called Rex, who lives in a world called Alrest, where people inhabit the backs (or bellies, hea...

On the second day of the Gamescom, I didn't play as many games as before, but bigger titles instead. Meaning I spent more time in queues. It was still a lot of fun though, and most of the games were worth the wait. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate by Nintendo The day began with a blast and I onlay had to wait 10 minutes to play it. I dare saying that probably not everyone was as lucky as me, since most of the time there was a big queue of 5/6 hours. Smash Bros. Ultimate was exactly what you would expect from it: Quick fun, not too many suprises. I found the game to feel more responsive to my input than Smah Brow. Wii U and overall it felt more fluent. A safe buy for me, and I won both rounds I got to play, so there's a chance that I won't do to bad in the game. Team Sonic Racing by Sega Now this is a game I didn't thought I would play. Or like. But there was no queue and so I had a pretty good time with it. I liked how important teamwork was, with the game makin...

Since I spent the last days on the Gamescom in Cologne, I thought they would be the perfect topic for my next post. I will probably split it into three parts, each part for one day, so it stays reasonable. For the most part, will talk about the games I played and what I thought about them. Let's get started! DAY 1 The first day I spent mostly with indie games, simply because I was too lazy to line up for the big titles like Smash Brothers, Tomb Raider etc. But that is not particularly a bad thing, since I found almost everyone of them a good investement of my time. Now, what exactly did I play? Lost Ember by Mooneye Studios I wish there was a picture of the pig you can play. It was so cute Lost Ember was simpley beautiful. In this game you play as a wolf who can transform into other animals. While I don't know what the story is about, the atmosphere was fantastic. But it wasn't without flaws: The demo was pretty long, which isn't really fitting for the Games...

So I continued with the drawing for my mother and coloured it. Now it is a flat, meaning there is no depth of view in the moment. That will happen in the next step, when I start shading the picture. I still might do some small changes in the basic colors and the poses, as I did this time. Now Before I definitely have to clean the outlines a bit, since some of them are still pretty rough. See you next time!

Everybody knows the problem: Somebody important to you has his or her birthday and there you stand, without a clue what to gift. Well, today was the birthday of my mother. This year I wanted to draw something for her, something beautiful. But the time kind of ran away from me and now the day has come and I am starting with working on her gift... today. A bit late, I know, but luckily my mother is a very understanding person. So I thought I would share the progress of working on it with you! Today I worked on the layout of the drawing using silhouettes. All characters are from Studio Ghibli movies, since my mother and I love watching those movies together. Next I will start colouring it, but first only as a flat (meaning no big light effects etc.)

Well here we go again. All that I have written is gone and I have to write it again. I was in such a good mood, nearly done with everything but that couldn't be, right? Now, in this post I want to look what makes the cast of Radiant Historia such a splendid cast. I will try to spoil as less as possible, so don't worry as we dive in! By th way, I can only recommend reading the story analysis first ;) http://journeygamedesigner.blogspot.com/2018/07/story-analysis-radiant-historia-perfect.html Stocke Writing a good protagonist is not easy. Commonly in JRPGs there are two ways to handle a protagonist: Either you make him a somewhat bland character so every player can easily identify with him or you make him a strong character, risking that not everyone identifies with him. Stocke is somewhat inbetween. While he is calm, he definitly has his own character. Every choice the player makes for him are choices that fit the picture the player constructed when seeing him. Him be...

Oh, how I hate it. I was done, it was beautiful, only thing that was missing was the disclaimer. But then one misclick, everything crashed and now two hours of work are gone. I will write this text again. But I doubt it will be uploaded today. I will now eat some ice cream or so and then try to write the text as good as before. But it will take some time and there are other things needing my attention as well.

Oh Radiant Historia , what beautiful memories I have of you.You hooked my right from the beginning, never letting me down for a second. But why were you so mesmerizing? That's want I want to research, hoping to learn some tricks of you, the magician. Now don't worry dear readers, I haven't forgotten you and I don't expect you to know the story of this fantastic, wonderful game that you probably should play as soon as possible. I will gently lower you in the mysterious sea of story that Radiant Historia is and together we will brave the storms of emotions that this game throws at us. Was this corny enough? Good, then let's begin. Summary Lippti and Teo Off to a great start: Other games give you some time and are very gentle in the beginning, Radiant Historia  (developed by Atlus and Headlock  )shows you the worst case scenario a soon as you start the game: The end of the world through desertification and the most depressing music I have ever heard. Why, ...

As one might expect, I thought a long time about what to do on this blog and how to make it special, especially in the story-writing departement. Now I finally had an idea: I will look into the stories and at the characters of different games, analyse their structure and what makes them special. Since I play a lot of JRPGs, you will mainly see analyses about them, but I will try to keep it exciting. So look forward to it, because I sure do! PS: None of those pictures above are made by me and even though I wish it were different, the games sadly aren't by me either.

About a month now has passed since my last post and I have to confess, I neglected this blog. Admittedly I had many things to do for university. But now I am back at full speed, so let's start with a 2d animation I made for university! The inspiration for this animation was the movie "The Cat Returns" made by Studio Ghibli. Our task was to animate a characters walking cycle together with a special action. It was a lot of fun even if the program crashed now and then and my computer had some problems handling Adobe After Effects. Since Blogger isn't the best at playing videos, I will share the YouTube link for the animation, so that you can watch it yourself. Since it is supposed to be a loop, I can only recommend watching it as such. Link for 2d animation:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSJd2Euki9o

It has been a while since my last post, but that has been because I had an important handing in for the subject 2d vector graphics. Anyway, here is what I submitted. Inspiration were ghost mansions and other spooky things like old amusement parks. At the beginning I even wanted a creepy doll sitting in the foreground. But it didn't really do much for the picture and pulled away the attention from the character. The character first was supposed to be a ghost, but it was a bit difficult to make it look good with the transparency, since there were always some overlapping edges. But in the end, I think the picture works out nicely.We will soon have to animate the character and I am very excited to learn how to do that!

I decided that my first review would be about the game Professor Layton and the Curious Village . I chose it, because it was one of the first games I really played and I want to forget the horror that was Lady Layton. Now, let's begin! Don`t worry Layton, those are probably nice people. Just don`t trust those with a moustache.  Summary: Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a puzzle adventure game developed by Level-5, which released on February 15, 2007 on the DS. In the game you play as, who would have guessed, Professor Hershel Layton and his somewhat obnoxious apprentice. Layton is a archaeology professor in London with a knack for solving puzzles. When he get`s a mysterious letter asking for help in an inheritance dispute and the search of a golden apple, he can`t resist. And so, the first of many adventures started, as the player experienced the adventures of Professor Layton. Positive Aspects: - The riddles: this game has over 120 puzzles, inclu...

 The harp and the hands still need more work, but I just drew the shades of them, the details will follow soon. But I am happy with how it`s progressing!

The original Elphin: I hereby declare that I do not own the  rights to this image. All rights belong to the owner. No Copyright Infringement Intended. Okay, I admit it: I had so much fun working in Photoshop today, that I continued anyway, even though I had other things to do for university. Don´t tell my professors. Anyway, for a fact, my favorite franchise is Fire Emblem. And because of that I probably spend to much time thinking about it. Some time ago I found this community: https://fecompendium.tumblr.com/ called Fire Emblem Compendium. They do pretty cool drawing challenges and I decided to tackle one of the older ones called Random Character Challenge . I got Elphin and I didn`t knew anything about him. Because his game never released outside of Japan. But he seems to be a good guy, I like his design, so I like drawing him. I am not done with my drawing of him yet, but here is a picture of the progress I made today. More is coming soon! My Elph...

I have to say, I am happy with the result of my work. I drew this at university under the guidance of my professor. Everyone drew a dwarf and even though mine is of course not as good looking as the one of my professor, I am still satisfied. I had a lot of fun, and while there are still many things that could be better (like the shadow on the wall), I think that for the first time seriously drawing something in Photoshop, it went quite well.

Hello everyone and welcome to my Blog! While I am not expecting anyone to read this, I thought, that I should make this offical and tell you what this is a ll about. About me My name is Hannah and I am an aspiring Game Designer living in Germany.I am still a student a t the moment , but someday I will hopefully work in the industry! My passions are writing, reading, music and of course gaming. While I am still new to the whole blogging buisness, I hope you nevertheless will enjoy the time you spend here. What will you find in this Blog? Well, mostly you will see me wirting about games (MDA-Analysis, Reviews etc.), writing creative texts and creating pictures. These pictures can be 3D-Renders, drawn pictures and vector graphics. At  the moment I am pretty much a beginner in all of these, so please be gentle. Ever so often you will get to see game ideas made by me or a trailer of a game that I am working on with other students. That`s all I have to say for now, but stay tu...