Making assets
First, we had to establish what assets will be needed so we sat down and wrote our list. We had to keep in mind that most of the assets would be in two different colour schemes - switching world mechanic. We divided our assets list into the sections where they will be needed in. Having that we pretty much had a step by step plan what needed to be done.
The Bridge
The bridge was needed in the first level - tutorial.
After crossing the bridge player would no longer be in a tutorial area. First, I created a two layer version of the bridge so the part with the wooden pattern would be behind the player and the completely red part would be in front of the player.
This is to create some depth and the illusion on the character actually being on the bridge.
Next, I made a broken version of the asset to visually tell the player that they cannot come back to the tutorial area once they're exited it.
The Flora
For the flora, I decided to use two different styles one in the manga style and the other in Ghibli-like. The First one would be used in the foreground and the second further in the background. This is to create a sense of depth to the scene
Those assets were created by using the Ghibli style step by step method.
From the left: cloud asset, grass asset, rocks assets
Stone assets
NekoMata - Assets
The style of the parts the player can interact with is different from the style of the background. By doing that the player has a strong visual clue that they can interact with the said assets. Moreover, the cat pops out from the background - like in cartoons when the audience can tell what items will be animated. It creates a nice separation from the background while the composition stays undisturbed.
Bowl Asset - an item the player will need for the BakeNeko quest
Folding Fan Asset - Used in the HP bar in the human world
Place holders
The more polished assets take a long time to create. To speed up the creation of an interesting background // for the arcade// place holders were made. A set of trees and bushes filled the background and added a visual representation of a more lively environment. Later those placeholders will be replaced by more polished assets.