Choices was more of a Netflix-like platform than a game, which hosts hundreds of interactive stories for users to consume. From a small handful of artist to a larger, but lean and powerful team, this app explored countless genres, themes, and rendering styles. It was indeed an artist’s paradise, where they can illustrate a fantasy world, then a Jane Austin era, then a sci-fi universe, then a superhero comic, all within a year. This app remains the high grossing leader of its genre, pumping out massive contents each release, in a well-oiled production pipeline.
With a small team of experienced artists, I directed the visual development and advancements over the years. On production side, I orchestrated the artistic training and art pipeline flow that maintained a multi-production, massive output that continued even today. The Art Direction/Management page (WIP) will describe more on the managerial practices. Below displayed past hands-on artwork and direction examples. Consider every example is multiplied by the hundreds to thousands over 6 years efforts.
The narrative requires the backgrounds to show various rooms and details. Left and right sides are used as two separate scenes. We creatively plotted out space and depth in x, y, and z axises. And we stretched perspectives and lens to meet various needs. The storytelling in our backgrounds were what made Choices engaging and unique. Rinse, repeat and make them quick!
One of the book needed a dragon, I created it to demonstrate the extreme cases on how to strategically pack in a large creature’s prominent features like large horns, long curled necks, as well as head movements for different expressions inside the limited bounding box.
I put together thorough and instructive style guides in order to train and unify rendering styles at a high quality bar among the internal and outsource artists, and introduce color branding processes to enhance the immersive experiences.
Along the years there were many updates to content features and UI redesigns, which requires countless templates to be made. I have also designed internal character builder tool. Aside from making the lo-fi wireframe below, I also set up templates, rules, graphics, and process for assets to become interchangeable.
These are just some miscellaneous images showing good processes collaborating with Tencent China and our outsource vendors.
The top image demonstrated clear style setting and good communication, aligning everyone’s visual expectations.
Left image shows how I created a recipe converting any image into anime/otome backgrounds.
Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.