Sunday 7 October 2012

E-Learning Game: Artwork & Design of Blossom Tree - play my game for free



Screen shot

Screen shot from early levels



Sammy the Snail
Talk about selling old rope! I designed Blossom Tree on my Multimedia Design and Digital Animation course back in Cumbria Institute of the Arts - now Cumbria University. This project opened a new path for me, I illustrated, animated and coded an E-learning game aimed a teaching young children to engage with simple maths quizzes and spelling puzzles. One of the biggest learning curves was learning to code in Actionscript, a language I had a no prior (serious) knowledge of using - so was thrown straight into the deep end!

The Art
To break the project down further I needed to set the scene and make the game appealing too a young audience taking into account: colour, simplicity and whether the children would actually be able to complete the game. Each illustration started out as a pencil sketch before being fully rendered in Photoshop, this was in the days when I would do the colouring with a mouse! Nutter! or perhaps I perhaps just ignorant...

The Plot
The story is based on two lads playing in the woods when suddenly the youngest is snatched by a stereotypically dastardly villain! (Children, watch out for dastardly villains) - not just any old dastardly villian – Victorian dastardly - Now that is most dastardly indeed! Anyway, you plough through the puzzles to rescue him. I have to admit, I watched at some stages as even fully grown adults could'nt answer the questions.

The project is quite dated now but I still felt it was worth a show after digging out the artwork for the launch of my illustration and ANIMATION site. See my illustration services here.

Artwork produced using markers pencils and PS, game animated and built in flash.
Looking back, I still despise the intro I had to add on… ergh!



Or play the old game http://jdillustration.jimmsdesign.co.uk/flashpages/e-learning.html