Loki Design
Loki has been chosen as the second boss encountered within the game. He is connected to the storyline as he is the reason that the Main Character is imprisoned and will need to be defeated to progress to Valhalla. The designs of Loki will include base frames and animations for walking, attacking and death. His dialogue will also need to be considered to explain the storyline to the player within the game.
Although Loki is a god in Norse mythology, the depiction of the character is mostly related to the Marvel interpretations. Before finalising the direction of the character, it needed to be decided if Loki would follow the classical mythology path or the Marvel version. As a very simple form of user testing, users were asked to identify who the character was in images of Classical Loki and Marvel. Most of the people asked were not able to identify Loki in the classic images but after having it revealed, could see the resemblance.
This heavily factored the design of the character, would a design of Loki that is easily recognisable yet unoriginal be better for the game than a unique interpretation of the character. Generally, Loki was synonymous to the Marvel version, Tom Hiddleston in particular.
The Marvel version is a character with a green, gold and black colour scheme. His golden helmet, attached with large horns, is a signature feature of the character that is easily recognisable. Other features of the character is long dark hair and an expression of insanity.
Classic depictions of Loki resemble a joker in some images and demon in the other. Long ginger hair and horns is also included in many of the depictions. The classic images of Loki are ambiguous and there is no image that will be easily identifiable as Loki.
An initial design of the character has been created with colour and slight modifications, using the art style asset guide. This is to keep the character design consistent with what is currently in the game.
After the initial art style concepts were made, user feedback was required to determine how well the character would fit into the game, does the art style of the character match existing designs and more. Some of the questions that were asked were:
- Who is this character (image of Classic Loki)? - Initial question before the person knows the topic of the questionnaire.
- What type of character do you imagine when you think of Loki?
- Can you recognise who this character is (image of Loki art above)?
- Does this art style match that of the Main Character?
- Are there any improvements you would like to see with this character?
When asked who the character once, most people asked had no idea, one of the answers was a god from Greek mythology - Pan. This was the first question asked to determine if people would be able to identify the character if a similar version were to be implemented. The feedback provided allowed us to determine that an easily recognisable depiction of the character would remove any confusion in the game.
The green, gold and black colour scheme was a defining part of the Loki character to the people who were asked. Classical versions do not have a set colour scheme so this answer was not surprising. Loki was thought of as a somewhat evil, malevolent character. This information as well as the original description of Loki being a trickster was something very important to consider when writing the storyline and dialogue.
Due to the similarities with the Marvel character, the images could be easily identified. All of the people asked could identify the character.
All of the participants in the questionnaire agreed that the art style matched the main character, this was a good sign that the art asset style guide allowed for a consistent design between different characters. Some parts of the design that did not match were the clothing of the character. Since the character was based on Marvel, a modern clothing style was used. The colour scheme of the character
Many of the participants were happy with the design and how it would fit into the game. One participant noted that changing the clothing could make the character match both the main character and overall game art style better.
Some feedback received on the designs is that since the character is taken from Marvel interpretations, it includes a very modern clothing style which has been agreed does not fit the game well.
The design of Loki was further refined to better suit the Norse mythology theme of the game and target user feedback received through user testing. The character's clothing was mainly refined, focussing on enhancing the royal clothing look with the addition of a green cloak, gold trimming detail and improved colour shading. A more suitable shade of yellow-gold was also incorporated into the character's headgear to better correlate with the game art style and reflect a more realistic viking helmet. This allowed for the character design to have a less 'modern' look and better suit the design of the other bosses, including Thor and Odin, as well as the main player character.
Inspiration for improving Loki's clothing and appearance was gathered through the following research.
Loki Design Inspiration (Sources - 1: https://imgbin.com/png/PjDm3ysK/loki-thor-chibi-comics-drawing-png 2: https://www.kindpng.com/free/loki/ 3: https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/loki-kid-loki-pop-vinyl-pop-vinyl)
The following design represents the final agreed Loki Boss design, with the front walking frame animation.
