Using Frameworks and a Game Engine

We started off with a question. Using an agile process, how quickly could we launch a jump-‘n’-run game for iOS and Android? By using frameworks and a game engine, we were able to devote ourselves fully to developing the game’s concept. And that’s how Jinxed Road came to life with just a few team members in a short period of time.

The concept art and first few mood images were all created on an iPad. Back then, we still needed Astropad Studio for Photoshop. The latest versions of Apple’s Mac OS now have this functionality built in.

When we’d decided on our favorite from among the drafts, we developed another variation of it which our “character” could switch to and from. The game’s world was built entirely from 3-D models. But the real highlight? Its illumination made it look like a two-dimensional illustration.

All objects are colored with just one material so that the rendering of the models is as performant as possible at run time. Contrast this with typical 3-D scenes – not only are there multiple materials for each scene, there are multiple for each object.

The simple style of the concept art made it possible for us to use a texture containing multiple color palettes. This means that models can be colored in a genuinely nice and elegant way.

The daylight world can be seen in the top half of the palette, while the bottom half contains the night world – and they’re most clear in the first six squares in both cases. They define the “character” color.