Graduate Games Blog

When I conceived the backgrounds, I knew that I wanted to maximize the artwork I was paying for and build in the ability to mix and match elements to form new unique permutations of the backgrounds.  In order to accomplish this, I required that every background be dissected into 3 parts: the sky, backdrop, and foreground.  This allows us to mix and match any of these background pieces together (some don’t work as well together as others).  Eventually, I will get around to taking a video of our level editor so you can see how easy it is to change the time of day and mix the background elements together.

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1. The Sky – there’s a ton of weather and other factors  that make earth’s sky look different every day.  We kept it simpler in our game and offer a variety of skies ranging from clear sunny days to cloudy overcast days to moonlit nights.

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2.  Backdrop – the backdrop sits in front of the sky and is one of the more distinguishing parts of the background.  It usually contains set pieces to help identify and differentiate each location.

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3. Foreground-   Finally, there’s the foreground.  This is where you can change an empty grass field into a city street or flower filled knoll.  Don’t like the bushes in the picture above?  Remove them.  Don’t want the flowers, nix them.  All of these actions will give players variety.