Hero Screenshots - The Garden

Hero Screenshots - Screenshots that every single player will go through, and will experience in the exact same way. 

Early on, we got advice that a good way to priotize art resources and time is to gather the Hero Screenshots of the game. Since every single player will see these in the same way, it's important these screenshots look polished and beautiful (compared to a hidden easter egg area, which only a small percentage of players will see). 

Our most important hero screenshot in the entire game is when the player enters the garden for the first time. The players will have just completed the tutorial level, which had a cloudy and sombre atmosphere. At the end of the level, though, the player picks up the Chrysanthemum flower and gains the ability to clear dark fog, and proceeds into the garden. With the previous level in mind, we wanted players to enter the garden with a sense of worry because they can see the garden is foggy and broken, but we also want them to feel curious and hope knowing they have the tools to clear the fog (and ultimately, put the garden back together). The experience goals of this shot are for the player to feel a mix of worry and hope. 

We were struggling a lot with the circled/squares area in the screenshot below. We didn't know how to connect a bridge to the walkway, and there was too much noise on the walkway itself. Seeing where the walkway meets the dirt ground is also visually ugly. We experimented by removing the center part of the walkway and making the bridge go directly into the garden and this already reduced the visual noise and drew the player's attention towards the center of the garden more. We also put in some water to try and obscure the base of the walkways and hide where the structure meets the dirt. 

The art team ultimately decided to remove that front walkway entirely, because the two parts on the left and right of the bridge were distracting, and continued with the bridge and water! For the hero screenshot, we added a lot more fog as our concept artist had proposed, but if players choose to go back to the bridge after replanting the Chrysanthemum, they can also enjoy the view with the water. 

The Final Screenshot