This is a remake of an old 1982 Atari game, Barnstorming, in the style of the famous American painter, Edward Hopper. You play as a car, driving out from the large city to your new country home. Avoid obstacles, while going through gas stations to get to your destination.
Developed: October 2017
My Role: Solo Development
Type: University Project
Design Decisions and Process
From early playtests, it was obvious that people did not know that they had to go through the gas stations to win the game. So to communicate this mechanic without directly telling them, a gas station was placed directly in-front of the player at the start of the game. This caused them to almost always go through it.
Re-creating Edward Hopper's realistic art style was something I struggled to figure out early on. Eventually though, I went with a low poly approach, theming it to the 1930's. This was done by making the textures less saturated and having an old-timely font. Overall, I believe that even though it doesn't feature realistic painted visuals, it still relates quite a bit to Edward Hopper.
The main correlations to the artist though, was done through the setting. All things Edward Hopper painted like trains, looking out of windows, countrysides, gas stations, etc, were implemented into the game. A main aspect of his paintings was looking out of windows, which the camera appears to do in-game. Lighting was another element Hopper fondly painted. In the game there are 3 levels, each with a different level of lighting and visual style. Dusk, Dawn and Midnight. This creates both a different visual style, as well as altering the game. At Dawn, there are more potholes and at Midnight, vision is limited. These small differences create distinguishable levels, for a project we only had a few weeks on.
