“Skiddy is a product designed to simulate driving on ice or the drifting style of driving that is now becoming popular in racing. It utilizes the same Neveplast Np30 product currently used for Alpine skiing and Tubby tubing slopes. This surface is designed to have a low level of friction contact area and a slippery surface.” – Neveplast –
Now you can challenge your drifting abilities on your smartphone!
Hi all! This is FranzinaV, CRYsoft Development Graphic Artist and I’m here to introduce you Skiddy, our latest fatigue!
It’s been a while since we posted something about CRYsoft’s activities. The thing is we were so busy during the realization of our brand new game, that we forgot to spread the news about it properly. We are still here, working for the first time, on commission! Now we’re ready to dance with Skiddy on the new path we’ve chosen to step on.
Neveplast s.r.l. the italian creator of artificial sky slopes, entrusted us the realization of its first entry in the App’s world and as game artist and art director of myself, I am quite satisfied about it. This is an important statement since we all are hypercritical about our own work!
I have to spend a word to thank Rolling Legend first, for the way this job teached me how to free my imagination and grow in self-confidence, besides the fact to having made known our work to Neveplast’s guys of course. They agreed on the fact that my style was suitable for their project, so they decided to see what we could have churn out with a mock up. And so our adventure began with few simple slides of presentation.
Mockup for the presentation: Just a few sketches to show the potential without going into details: only colors, simple shapes and a hideous prototype kart that makes me shudder watching it now (thank goodness, this slide is not in High Res)! 😀
As it happened with Rolling Legend, the focus is once again on the relationship between the colours and on the way in which they influence each other. We choose a strong colour impact; mainly primary colours and their complementary pure and “flat” which, in my imagination, they return a little the idea of old arcade games (a little bite of the “Kyoto” track, my favourite here).
Skiddy is a quick and immediate game without pretension of realism, so the style of the assets had to be very simple and immediate as well, keeping in mind that it is a 2D game! As a non game designer, I usually do not participate to the “analysis phases” and I’m not even much of a help in logistics. But sometimes I’m truly happy and satisfied when my graphic solutions support some practical options of the game itself. I’m always glad to help even when I should not 😛
the “Savana” asset
Very amusing was the making of the karts. For I’m not a real designer aaand… my technical design skill really sucks! So it has been a kind of a wager to give shape and character to things never seen nor piloted, which were waiting for me, challenging me (sketch me, if you can!), from the photographs I received for inspiration.
customization
As you can see by the video, we decided to cut short the pleasantries, and draw entire blocks of mechanical parts to facilitate the vehicle settings before the race (and by the way, it is even easier for the Code Master, to manage the kart issue this way!).
A special mention to the music. On the video, you can listen the HOME track of Skiddy, part of the OST composed and mixed by our Music Baker Cristiano “Tecnyoh” Chikikatomo… it simply Rocks! \m/
I told you that Skiddy was not intended to be a realistic game, yet we still tried to give the impression of depth despite its being a 2D game with top view. So I drew the assets with a false perspective (any architect or true designer, could mow my hands at the mere sight of it, but my motto lately is: “To hell the perspective!” in a “gracious” manner of speaking) and static translucent shadows which integrate well with the land and the assets with a decent illusion of natural light. I hate the flatness, so the dilemma was great: I tried in every way to apply shadows to all assets but some of them had been created to return a different light conditions, to give the idea of a change in position of the source (the sun), then some shadows have warmer colors, just for this reason.
As for the logistics, and as some of you already know, we always do our best to create games and Apps with the maximum attention for details, therefore everything you see was created by us, each element has been hand drawn, from the panels to icons to the buttons.
No pre packaged assets: all made in CRYsoft! 😉
The false perspective and the shadows 😀
One more word about the special track we have dedicated to our beloved small town San Benedetto del Tronto.
A tribute that we hope will lead one day the true Skiddy, the one of the real world created by Neveplast, also here and maybe see our karts (with the special design made by us), whizzing by the sea!
Skiddy may be the nth Racing Kart Game, but don’t be hasty in judgments and classifications, I love it also for its being a borderline! The fun is guaranteed, and the challenge will satisfy even the veterans of Racing Games.
So stay tuned, the release day is approaching!
FranzinaV out 😉