PHIL HOARE TIME
Propulsion Visual Style
This is a 2D game where the player can always see the main moving part: the spaceship. Other elements in the game are there to complement the spaceship, to make it stand out more. This is because the spaceship is what drives the power fantasy of the game. The game will have a minimalist stylised art style. There are two key parts in the game that will each have slightly different art styles; however, it is important that these styles are not too different from each other so that there is a consistent theme across the whole experience. Therefore, restrictions described below in the ‘overall style’ section will apply to all visual elements. The rest of this document has been divided into sections that cover each visual part of the game; these are the “spaceship” and “civilisations on the surface" sections.
Overall Style
The key to the visuals is minimalism and it is important to represent any elements in a recognisable but abstract way, if possible. Everything will look clean and any colours will be vibrant to make the illustrations pop out of the screen. When detailing the visuals, use shadows to add depth but only add one or two layers of shadow.
Spaceship
The spaceship will have a rocket-like design but it changes over time, depending on upgrades the player unlocks. The main style of the spaceship is almost like an old comic but with simpler block-shading, see the images on the top right, the one on the top left and finally the bottom left for examples. Highlights, in white only, can also be used in a similar way to their use in the blue flame in the bottom left image.
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Colours will be used with little variation and instead will always be a solid colour with a highlight, if necessary. See the top two images in the centre to get an idea of how colour variation will be used minimally.
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The ship will have many different styles, depending on upgrades chosen, and some of these will add or reduce the size of the spaceship. For example, some modules will be bulky which will change the overall design of the ship to be a bigger and more curved object. However, most modules will be sleek and can even be very thin; to inspire these designs, use the silhouettes in the centre and the sketches in the bottom centre.
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The spaceship does not need to be realistic, and instead the focus in the art will be to make it aesthetically pleasing. Upgrades, which add extra modules, will have a distinct style according to the era that they are from, but they will still fit in with the overall theme of the ship. For example, if a player gets an upgrade from Ancient Egypt, the new module will contain visual elements from that era but the overall module design will fit easily with the style of the ship; it may also have a yellow accent but its overall colour will remain the primary colour of the rest of the ship.
The spaceship in this game is modular, allowing the game to easily mix and match parts as the player selects upgrades. A new upgrade bought from a civilisation will usually result in a new module being added. I have compiled this image of modules, which are used in rockets across the world, to inspire modules that could be added in the game.
The spaceship will be positioned on an invisible grid and modules will take up one or two of these grid spaces. This will make development easier as the art will always be the same dimensions.
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When modules are added, as in the case with real stages in rockets, they will usually be added to the middle of the ship and making it taller, rather than the sides. However, some modules will be added at the sides, such as shields or emergency fuel modules that eject when used. The player has no choice on where modules are added, instead the game automatically decides where they would fit best. As the spaceship grows in size the camera zooms out so that it is always in view. This also allows the player to view more of the background civilisations which will also grow to towering skyscrapers alongside the ship.
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The player begins with a basic crew module that has a thruster attached. They can choose different crew modules when starting the game and they will each look slightly different. The designs available will be based on NASA, Russia, China, ESA and SpaceX designs. Each will have an accompanying colour palette that affects the whole ship. The branding for each of these, such as logos or flags, will not be used in any way.
These (above) are full rockets from across the world that will be used to influence the design of modules, and the ship as a whole. You can see that each of these are usually very tall, and this is what will eventually happen to the player’s ship as they add more upgrades. Some modules will be wider, taking up two or three grid spaces, and these could add larger bases or more thrusters; the bigger rockets in this moodboard use large bases.
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There are certain traits from different nation’s rockets, such as the sleek pointy nature of Russian rockets (top left) versus the bulbous designs in the Chinese rockets (middle left), and these traits will be used to generate unique styles for different modules. For example, if the player lands in Ancient China they would get a bulbous module, inspired by their gunpowder-infused arrows (see “upgrades” page), whereas if they land in Cold War Era Russia they would get a pointy module.
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Early concepts in pre-production will focus on how modules from different eras and locations will have distinct styles; they will borrow aspects from each of these rockets. For example, the SpaceX Starship looks like an arrow head, and so a module inspired by this design would be from an era and country that were well equipped archers: Mongolia in the 13th century.
I have compiled some photographs (right) of rockets in the real world, as well as capsules and an illustration of a space station. The industrial but sleek, almost like a retro sci-fi, aesthetic of each of these will be used in designing modules for the spaceship. The ship, at least before they reach the future eras, will look as though it has been built with modern day technology. This disregards the fact that the technology was not available in the past; any modules from past eras, such as Ancient Greece, Rome etc, will still have a modern day look but with a twist from that era.
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The other element visible in these photos is the launch tower which provides access to those servicing the rocket. The game will have a launch tower that will automatically grow alongside the civilisations on the surface; it will always have the architecture of the time and place it is in. The tower is almost a background element and, visually, will provide a bridge between the two styles of the spaceship and the civilisations.
Schematics (left) are also a great source of inspiration for the spaceship and rocket design. I have collated some here which show more unique styles which could be implemented into modules, as long as they maintain a modern day overall aesthetic. Some, such as the curved on middle right and the left, will be used to inspire designs for future eras where the aesthetic will become slightly more sci-fi themed; here they will incorporate more curves and even sleeker looks.
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When the player is given the choice of which upgrade to go with, they will only be shown the schematic. The schematic will detail exactly what they upgrade does, indicating to parts on the module. This also means that the schematic can show the inside of the module, by showcasing top-down slices as well as a side view. Only showing the schematic encourages the player to try again, when they die, and try the other module to see it installed on their ship.
civilisations on the planet surface
The player will regularly visit the planet surface, to gain upgrades, and they will see a growing civilisation every time they land. The player will land in different civilisations, throughout real history, as, when they go up to space, the planet rotate below them; this rotation is not visible to the player. The result of this is that, when simplified to produce fun mechanics, a specific civilisation will always be below the player and this civilisation is only dependent on the year that the player is currently in.
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With this rule in mind there are clear choices for civilisations that should be below the player during specific time periods, so that the player may interact with key players in history; an example of this would be France between 1789 and 1799, during the French revolution. It is important that a timeline is established early in pre-production so that everyone is aware what civilisations will appear, and when they will.
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The overall style of the civilisations, and the surrounding nature, is detailed below.
The buildings in the background, which are the main representation of the civilisation that the player is in, will be very abstract. They will be 3D, see the bottom left images, but with little to no detail. Instead, the art direction for these structures will be to extract the core elements from buildings in the real life civilisation, and distil them so that they can be incorporated into the shape of the structures. The yellow image, right middle, is a good example of how minimalist the buildings will look. Eventually the villages will grow into towns, and towns into cities, so I have included silhouettes of cityscapes to show how these could look, with windows being utilised to represent the scale of the skyscrapers, but they would need to be converted to 3D for use in the game.
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The perspective of these buildings is always facing the spaceship, so that they seem to provide an audience for it. For buildings on the left of the spaceship, the player will be able to see their front and right walls, and for buildings on the right of the spaceship, the player will be able to see their front and left walls. The camera is always directly facing on them so there is no need for an above or below view; they are illustrations and not real 3D objects.
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The colours used in each civilisation will be visually distinct and representative of their real world counterparts. Each civilisation will use only one colour, and potentially an accent colour, as this allows for a greater range for each. It is important to note, however, that the colours will not be the primary way of distinguishing between civilisations, because this will exclude colourblind players, but it will work alongside architecture and symbols.
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The environment surrounding the buildings will consist of the environment found around that civilisation in real life. For example, in Ancient Egypt this would be desert. The environment will be as minimal as possible, only using one or two shades of a colour to give slight shadows. The environment also provides a slight separation between the spaceship and the buildings in the background, and it provides the base ground that the rocket lands on. The environment slowly disappears as the civilisation grows.
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There will not be a functioning day/night cycle. Instead, the environment will be static at midday. Some civilisations will be set at night, to provide variety, however this will be a permanent state for that civilisation so whenever it is visited it will always be night. Due to scope it is also unlikely that a variety of weather will be included. The backdrops will be: hot midday, cold midday, night; each of these will have a simple animated feature such as clouds drifting or snow falling.
The inhabitants of the civilisations wander about the foreground, in front of the spaceship, of the planet surface. They will drift aimlessly left and right, occasionally going offscreen to be replaced by others. Only two to three of them can be on the screen at once. In terms of height, they are a half of the height of a spaceship module; early on they will be very visible, however, as the spaceship grows they will appear smaller and smaller. As the camera zooms out, as modules are added to the ship, more inhabitants will become visible on the screen.
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They will also be minimalist and abstract in design. They will consist primarily of shapes alone, one for the body and one for the head. The character in the middle of this moodboard, surrounded by yellow, is a Bauhaus piece that is very similar to the design intended for the game. Animation will be used to bring these characters to life; this will be a clear head bobble as well as slight body tilting regularly.
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Colours, the same used for the civilisation’s buildings in the background, will be used as accents on the inhabitant to provide variety, and to link them to the civilisation.
Early Civilisations
Middle Ages Civilisations
Modern Day and Near Future
Future Eras
The above moodboards show civilisations throughout history, so can be used to inspire them in the game as they are put in.
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I would also like to represent climate change in the game, as it is a big problem today that needs action; therefore raising awareness of it would help. Naturally, this ties into the time mechanic: the effects of climatte change will become more obvious as the player visits the surface later in time. This will be especially prevalent in future cities, where the weather becomes more erratic and there will be less nature. Eventually, this will result in an underwater city, as the sea levels rise.