Behind the Scenes: Pledge Quest Concept Art!
As nineteenth-century German statesman Otto von Bismarck once proclaimed, "Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made." Well, if you replace the word "laws" with "adventure games" and the phrase "cease to inspire respect" with... I dunno, "inspire even greater respect"... and I guess the sausages are, like, puzzles... or maybe inventory items?
Okay, this is getting way too complicated. Let's just forget about Bismarck and take a behind-the-scenes look at
Akril's awesome concept art from
Pledge Quest I and
II instead.
(WARNING: Spoilers ahead!)
Akril: My first (and only) sketch of Bea's apartment (I resized it when I was ready to start coloring it in). The Bea sketches are there to figure out how large she needed to be at various spots in the room. I originally designed the closet door so that it could be opened and closed (starting out closed, as it is in this scene), but it was decided that having it permanently ajar would be simpler from a game design perspective.
Akril: Uncolored sketches of various objects and inventory items. (Bea's cell phone was going to be an inventory item at one point.)
Akril: Pencil sketches of the various new scenes in Pledge Quest II. I originally thought of having there be two computers in Scott and Mark's cubicle, but then I found that having them sitting together in front of one computer would work much better (and be a lot less work to draw).
Akril: Some more pencil sketches of the time machine, Mark and Scott.
Akril: A rough sketch of the noodle shop, complete with even rougher sketches of Bea and Roger. A lot of the props on the counter ended up getting moved around to make sure they didn't get in the way of the characters during their various animations (in the case of Bea's plate, I had to move it over to the left side of the counter so that she could pick up the fortune cookie sitting on it).
Akril: Some early 3D renders of Sierra On-Line's offices. The nude low-poly men are there to help with the scaling and positioning of the characters.
Akril: A small, cropped portion of the cubicle scene with a few changes. The posters are now there (though still blank), and the computer is no longer just a bunch of cubes.
Akril: A nearly finished version of the cubicle scene.
I know what you're thinking: "This website needs more cat photos!" Well, how about a photo of Brodie,
Decaffeinated Jedi's cat and
the real-life inspiration for the Pledge Quest series' Vohaul? In case you're curious, Brodie is just like Vohaul -- only slightly more evil and slightly less technologically adept.
