Art Direction
 

Okay, I think this deserves its own thread:

What kind of general art direction do you wan the game to take? What is your favorite game in terms of in-game art?

I personally would love something that looks similar to the AGD Interactive and Infamous Adventures remakes of the first few King's Quest games:

http://i.imgur.com/XNHox.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/QDcxt.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/PpX1A.jpg

A lush, "painted" look with a vibrant, storybook color palette. I think looking at the game should give a similar impression as looking at the box art for previous games, I-V specifically. I think a storybook color palette(erring on the side of "earthy" tones) is really important, and I would love to get the impression that the world exists on a storybook page, possibly with a perspective to cement that(with a camera similar to that in the earlier King's Quest games for atmosphere purposes). I don't think King's Quest is a franchise whose roots are in cinema, unlike Police Quest which draws from police dramas and Space Quest which draws from science fiction "Flash Gordon"-type influences, so a "cinematic" approach to the camera would seem wrong, like an "adaptation" of a fairytale on screen being adapted into a game, rather than adapting the fairytale itself in game form.

Just to clear it up for ya, the first and last images were from my remake, by Infamous Adventures. The middle one is from AGDI's upcoming KQ3 Redux - ours is more of a 1:1 remake, while theirs includes a few new story elements tying into their "Father" storyline from KQ2+.


Bt

Ah damn, I'm sorry. These projects are very confusing and I seriously thought I had the right ones. Please don't take offense.

What did you think of the art design in The Silver Lining? To me, it felt like they were going for something halfway between a traditional adventure game look and a more "cinematic" Telltale sort of look. The character models were 3D, but they had hand-painted textures, and I think they did try to stick to the "storybook" sorts of color schemes you described. The camera angles were very much like traditional third-person adventure games when you were moving around, but when you were interacting with objects and other characters, it would switch to more cinematic-looking close up shots. I actually really liked what they were going for overall, but I thought it could have been executed a little better.

Who ever worked on the Jurassic Park concept art should work on KQ... See what I mean?

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a35...ingGraham2.png
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/6134/kinggraham.jpg

...Okay, you're badass.

Paul Newman IS King Graham!

Anyway, a storybook feel is essential, but I'm not quite sure how that would be pulled off in the Telltale Tool. Maybe if whatever technique it was that made SBCG4AP look like a Brothers Chaps cartoon can make KQ look like a painting...

Richard Gere always reminded me of Graham when I was a kid.

I agree about the storybook feel, particularly for vistas and forests and stuff like that. King's Quest needs lush landscapes that may be difficult to achieve with Telltale's current engine, but I'm sure they'll find a way to make it work. Since they worked very hard on the facial animation systems and depth of field effects since W&G and TMI, perhaps now they can concentrate on some scenery technology to enable more complex backgrounds? I don't know, just a thought.

But yes, in short: LUSH landscapes, please! ;)

Push the TTG engine to its limits for things near the camera.... Detailed hand paintings in separate layers for everything in the distance that you can not actually reach.... the outcome would be decent I think.

That's something I want to see for a real, honest-to-goodness professional King's Quest game. Real, unresized, uncompressed paintings. Lush painted backgrounds in layers in 3D, like Irish said, painted with oils or acrylics on canvas, painted character portraits, perhaps a painted screen border, and 3D characters made to fit into the environment. This is something that has never been done before that I'm aware of, and exactly what I don't expect Telltale to do. I am sad.

TSL did something like this, but not with hand-painted layered backgrounds.

Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island tried hard to do it... but their 3D characters just didn't seem to fit in the beautifully done backgrounds.... I think TTG can do it... its just they do not want to because it would be more challenging in the time frame they work in.

Their deadlines and file sizes have noticeably compromised their games on occasion.

That's true. I remember being very impressed by both A Vampyre Story and Ghost Pirates for their nice use of background "planes" or layers. Immersive stuff.

http://i.imgur.com/AgO9I.jpg

Give me something like this.

I think Magicka has a pretty good art style. I think that, especially for a low budget indie, it's got a pretty damn good fantasy look to it. It's an action game, so it's environments are better than it's characters, but for the look of the world, I think it shows that 3D can look pretty good for a painted fantasy land.

http://i51.tinypic.com/35d68ls.jpg

http://i54.tinypic.com/2rcq5gk.jpg

http://i56.tinypic.com/2hz73ma.jpg

http://i55.tinypic.com/35hqybt.jpg

http://i53.tinypic.com/2jg4gbc.jpg

http://i56.tinypic.com/280eiq.jpg

Very interesting! Hey, is that Graham model from TSL?

Can't say I like Magicka though, especially since it has an isometric perspective. I mean, there's no sky at all! King's Quest NEEDS SKIES! ;)

If you mean my mockup, yep. They did a great job on textures, but I'd like to see Telltale take it the extra mile.

Awesome. This would be perfect.

Background is too much like Kincaid's work. Which I REALLY don't like. Is this just me?

You mean Thomas Kinkade? He's my favorite painter of all time. Not a surprise you'd hate him then, but his style would be my first pick as an inspiration for painting a new KQ game.

...

Ha! Haha! Haha! What a kidder, you!