NYC MTA Arts in Motion
Overview
In this choose your own adventure game, players will learn the tenets of financial literacy. The game revolves around a character that has just moved to a new city. They find a job, meet new roommates, and navigate through life’s different financial choices.
Prior to the game, players will take a pre-assessment quiz. When the game begins, they’ll select a character from 3 avatar options, then select from 3 job options, each with a different boss character.
Once those choices are made, they’ll navigate through 5 modules, each of which highlight a different aspect of financial literacy. Throughout the modules, players will interact with other characters in the game, make choices, balance budgets, and more.
As the game ends, players will receive an assessment of how they did with tips for improvement. They’ll then take a post-assessment quiz to see what they’ve learned from the game.
Brief
Create visual assets for 5 modules/financial literacy games for high school students. Assets include:
Avatars the player will choose from at the beginning of the game.
NPC characters to interact with the player Avatar.
Multiple scenes & game backgrounds including living room, bank, and places of work
Client: Wells Fargo in partnership with Backpack Interactive
Role: Illustrator / Designer
Timeline: March - May 2022
Process
Kick-off: Meet with client and project stakeholders to review client mood boards. Establish the scope of the project and align on general aesthetics and final deliverables.
Sketch assets: I begin sketching based off of the information collected during the kick-off. Sketches are explorative, and iterate off of a basic design to show the client different visual directions.
Review: Stakeholders have the opportunity to give feedback on before moving onto final art. The client wanted the characters to have lip synced voice overs, so mouth assets for each character where need in final art.
Final Art: Final art is reviewed and approved by client and stakeholders from Backpack Interactive. Files are handed off to animators and game engineers as Adobe Illustrator files for final product build.
Client story boards to help all stakeholders align on character visualization.
Sketches based off of the mood boards. The client identified that they wanted the characters to animate, so a gesture pose and flat pose to create animatable “puppets” where required.
Early exploration for a create your own avatar system that proved to be outside of the scope of the project.
Character style explorations using various color fills and line types. The client preferred the 2nd option.
Portrait options for various avatar and NPC characters.
A natural and stylistic approach to the character color palette.
The client asked for background and setting elements to be rendered in a manner similar to the 4th option of the character styles.
Background building elements.
Background buildings with additional dimension.
Final pose, puppet model, and mouth sheet for animation for Avatar 1.
Final pose, puppet model, and mouth sheet for animation for Avatar 2.
Final pose, puppet model, and mouth sheet for animation for Avatar 3.
Final pose, puppet model, and mouth sheet for animation for roommate Brody.
Final pose, puppet model, and mouth sheet for animation for roommate Sarah.
Final puppet model, and mouth sheet for animation for Bosses and Bank Teller NPCs.
Establishing shot background for player's apartment.
Player's apartment interior living room.
NYC street setting cut scene for transitioning to other game scenes.
Office building exterior.
Shoe design company interior.
Tech office interior.
Garage construction site exterior.
Garage construction site interior.
Airplane mechanic hangar interior.
Bank interior.