I had a ton of fun making the art for AkimBear! :gun: :bear: :gun:

Here are some notes about my thought process while making the art!

I only recently have seen the light of understanding colour pallets and Hue Shifting, so it was a ton of fun implementing those concepts and putting them to use!

Grizzle started out as looking like a relatively cute bear, however my teammate @ecmjohnson said he should look tougher, so as a joke I gave him a cigarette and an eye patch. The team dug it, so we stuck with it. His arms were kept small so we could hide them under the guns and not have to worry about them looking bizarre if rotated 360 degrees.

I tried to add as much bounce to the character while walking to emphasize his weight, and also made the cigaret bounce with his walk to add an extra sense of movement.

The squirrel was inspired by the Junior Senior - Move Your Feet music video who wanted to blow up the world:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPlQpGeTbIE

The Bird was added because we wanted to add a reason to not only be aiming at the ground at all times. So I made this fella:

In the lab, it’s revealed that the animals you’ve been fighting have been robots all along! (Hence the explosions. You didn’t think we were that cruel, did you?) And of course had to have antenna and be chrome to prove it.

Last level: It’s always a laboratory.

Some of my favourite games of all time are the original The House of the Dead games.

(Specifically The House of the Dead 1&2) And I always found it funny that in that type of game, the final twist was always that “it all came from one evil lab” so I thought it would be fun to play off that trope with our main character, Grizzle, being a genetic experiment. And of course, there are ALWAYS test tubes with the enemies you fight in them. Because “science is... evil”?

The Explosions were inspired by a combination of Sonic Mania, Contra 3, and Bomb Chicken.

Elevators 
Each levels elevator is different! Each signifies which level you’re on by changing it’s roman numeral as well as changing which of the 3 lights flashes. Look closely when you boot it up!

I added the No Smoking sign on the elevator doors very close the end of the jam as a last minute detail to make Grizzle seem even cooler. He don't care about the rules, he's got his machine guns and nothing's going to stop him.

Honey:

The Honey pots were an idea pretty early on in development as a form of heath and we ran with it.

Not only did it work as a pick up, but also as a way to transition between levels smoothly while maintaining a consistent aesthetic. Plus it just looks tasty... Mmmm...

And yeah! That's about all I can think of that's worth showing! I had a blast creating all this stuff and exploring colour pallets!

If you have any questions let me know and i'd be more than happy to discuss.

Check out the game here to see all the art in action