The art direction checklist
The Art direction checklist for indie game developers...
Attention indie developers and designers, nearly all clients, consumers and publishers found art direction to have critical value. Adding an impressive and dynamic art style to your dream games feature set. Starting up with little experience a steep learning curve can be tough. Fret not- here are some tips to communicate a great art style throughout your project and how to be sure when you have a great art style.
*Best used before any production phase of development.
- Planning Points
- Did we make an Art Direction document that specifies how the game should look; key characters, features, environments and key assets?
- Who is the audience/recipient for the art assets, game planning docs? Can we be more clear?
- Budgeting
- How long will it take to finish all the art required in the game?
- Is the vision consistent to budget/time to build?
- How comparable is this budget to market average?
- Pre-Production Salvageable assets
- Can any of the concept assets or mock up be used?
- How can we adapt existing pre-production assets for what is needed?
- How does it translate to the production assets and menus?
- Tools
- Can we make/ use any tools to help deploy art? (Animation/character systems, shaders, Level Tools, etc)
- UX & Typography
- How did we ensure it’s easy to navigate?
- Does it match the theme of the game?
- How can we prove this?
[Proper Indie….]
- Marketing / Key Visuals
- Do you know how you’re going to market this game?
- Does the key Visual Convey the mood and emotion of the game?
So how did you do?
If you only considered 1- 4 of these major areas; things in your project could run into a little trouble when getting the wow factor in production. Your game will need some work later on down the road or after a review.
If you covered 5 – 7 of these areas your project is getting there. Continuing to spend well thought out time will guide your game to success, but be sure you keep supporting the art process to guide the visual communication as best you can, within your budget.
If you can evidence 8 + or more documents from the list to visualise each of the components your project could be on the way to something fantastic!
Of course there are always more ways and methods of appraising an art direction, get in touch and we can support your game or technology project.