Hi Monkeys!
We wanted to give you a cheeky peek behind the curtain and show off some of the new art our amazing artist Ece has been working on, while these updates won’t be available in the demo, we wanted to share some of the things you have to look forward to in the full game!
The art style I used for BOMBANANA! was actually something I came up with during a game jam, I wanted to create a style that would allow me to work quickly while still having a strong visual identity. It doesn’t rely on line art and instead focuses heavily on vibrant color combinations and painterly textures. This also gives me more freedom when working and creates a more hand painted feeling.
That’s actually how we found her, we were part of the same gamejam and loved the art style, so we immediately reached out to her to work on the art for BOMBANANA!
The very first thing I focused on was textures. People had already enjoyed the demo as it was but I felt we could take the environments much further by bringing the same 2D feeling from the UI into the 3D models as well. In previous games I worked on, I painted the entire environment by hand and that taught me how strong environmental art can make in drawing the player into the world. For BOMBANANA! I wanted to keep that painterly quality while making sure it didn’t become too realistic. Since the game is very comical I focused on exaggerating shapes and details rather than trying to make everything look physically accurate. I also used watercolor brushes from time to time to give the textures a more raw/handmade quality.
The other major area I focused on was the UI. In the demo we had a more static lobby design but after watching players’ videos I noticed that they actually spent a lot of time talking (mostly fighting) in the lobby. It’s a space where all three players can communicate freely without obstacles like being mute or deaf. So one of the first things I wanted to introduce was animated mouths which could visually show who was speaking while also adding another layer of comedy. I also wanted the UI to reinforce the 2D art style, giving it more of a comic book feeling while incorporating more animations and movement.
For the demo our main environment was the van so the UI was designed around that specific setting. For the full version we wanted to explore a wider variety of environments so I designed a more general UI language that could work across different areas of the game. As for keeping the comedy intact I think the game itself is already funny enough to give me a strong foundation so I wanted my art to support it.
That's all for now monkeys, everyone say thank you to Ece! We’ll have lots more updates for you next week.
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-Lefto 💣🍌