DAY 2
So today was a slow day. Productive nonetheless, but slow. I started working on the project by testing what was done last night and wasn't pleased with the result. It did not make any sense to have that kind of maze at the beginning. Because I did not test last night, I've come to the realization that the trees were scaled far too much and the player could very well waltz through the maze, avoiding the intended path.
It was immediately clear that a different design is needed there; a simpler, more familiar and less complicated one. And so a different design reared it's head quite fast.
In place of the trees, now this section contains two small interconnected patches of land (that's the best way I can put it, English is not my native language). The "below" levels will be filled with water and buildings on the patches of land. For the building *style*, an Ancient Greek or Ancient Roman style of building would be cool.
And the choice of these buildings might have decided what the Art direction would be for this project. I was torn between having a stylized look versus realistic look with post process effects. I'm leaning more and more towards a "dream-like state" art direction: deep colors, oil painting post process but with realistic looking assets.
Since it doesn't realistically make sense to have Ancient Greek or Ancient Roman buildings in this manner (isolated, smack dab in the middle of the road, so to speak) it would make sense to have them there as a metaphor for "ancient knowledge". Like "in order to reach the top of the mountain, first you must have this ancient knowledge into possession" kind of thing.
Officially I've spent more time writing this than I did working on the project, so I'll stop for now. Will be back tomorrow, with more progress, hopefully.