Game Research

Before I designed my game I looked into other game designers work and how they made their ideas. I looked into Pokemon and Zelda games character sets before I designed my own. I was inspired by Pokemon and Zeldas retro/ Gameboy look because of the history most gamers have as a child with retro video games. I like the style of the graphics being 2D and not 3D because the majority of games today are in 3D perspective and focus to much on graphics rather than the gameplay itself.

 Below are some character tile sets from the game Pokemon and Zelda on the Gameboy.

Pokemon                                                         Zelda

       

           
               

Below is my tileset of my character for my game Rise Of The Dead created in Photoshop CS5 using the pencil tool to create each individual pixel. I have drawn my character in 8 different directional position to be able to make a walk cycle and to change costume while the character walks.

My Tile Set

I used some reference from GameBoy games such as Pokemon and Zelda for some idea of how a character would move and style. I liked the 8 bit character style because it reminded me of my days playing one of my first ever games. When I was younger I wished I could make my own game in a style of Pokemon and many years later I was adamant to stick with my initial idea and create my game with a Pokemon/Zelda theme. 


Further Research

When starting this project I looked up the creator of Pokemon and Zelda Satoshi Tajiri. Satoshi Tajiri is a Japanese video game designer best known as the creator of Pokémon and the founder of development company Game Freak, Inc. An avid fan of arcade games, Tajiri wrote for and edited his own video gaming fanzine Game Freak with Ken Sugimori, before evolving it into a development having the same name. Tajiri was inspired by the gameboy using its link system allowing other players to play one another. This gave him the idea to swap and trade pokemon with other players influenced by his hobby as a child (Insect collecting). The game, which became Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green(Pokémon Blue outside of Japan), took six years to complete and went on to spark a multi-billion dollar franchise which reinvigorated Nintendo's handheld gaming. Tajiri continued to work as director for the Pokémon series until the development of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, when he changed his role to executive producer. I was influenced by Tajiri's work and I shall make my own game using the same 8 bit style he uses in Pokemon and Zelda.

Satoshi Tajiri

More Further Research

Before Satoshi Tajiri named Pokemon he originally named the creatures Poketmonsters but due to a child not being able to pronounce the name of the title he could only say Pokemon. This gave Satoshi the idea of renaming the idea of Poketmonsters to Pokemon.

Pokemon is released every single year by a either a new TV series to a new game being made even today. From the years of 1995 to today Pokemon is still going strong building a bigger a fan base by the day.

Below is an image of Tajiri Promoting his NEW Pokemon game Diamond and Pearl version.

Pokemon Pearl Version

Pokemon Diamond Version