Global Game Jam 2023
Me and my friends - we call ourselves "The Gramers" - decided to take part in another game jam!!
This year's global game jam theme was "Roots" so we decided to make a flower-growing game. This time, I decided to try UI art since I'm not very good at it and wanted to improve.
We were initially unsure what to name the game. I ironically said "wouldn't it be funny to give the game a long name?" and proceeded to type "Please Don't Let My Sunflower Die, Thanks" as a joke. My team loved it and decided to go with it lol.
I started by trying different designs for the item boxes. Our main inspirations were Stardew Valley and Part Time UFO.
In the end we decided to go for the third one.
I tried to match the UI for the other elements with the design I gave the Item Box.
I used a heart icon to indicate a health bar, a water droplet to indicate the water bar, and a sun icon to indicate the sunlight bar.
As you can see, I tried to keep it as consistent as possible. The green colour of the UI also made it stand out against the background.
I used a clock illustration to decorate the clock timer.
For the progress bar, I tested out different designs. In the first one, I kind of wanted the yellow dots to be an indicator of milestones so you could easily tell how much progress you were making. In the second and third design, I just used a thin line to show this.
The second design was too wide and I think it took up too much space on the screen.
In the end, everyone liked the idea of using the sunflower icon moving up the bar in the third design.
For the cursor design, I made it look like a sunflower seed. This idea was actually suggested by one of my teammates.
Since we still had some time left, I created a win screen and a lose screen. By this point, I had chosen a font to use in the game and uploaded it to the group's shared google drive so that it could be used in the game. I also downloaded it so I could use it in Aseprite to create these screens.
The artist working on the sunflower needed a bit of help with some tasks so I helped make the wilted sunflower's stem and leaves.
Afterwards, I was asked to make some more insects to add to the game so I made a moth, wasp and grasshopper, all of which are harmful to sunflowers.
Unfortunately, we didn't have time to implement these into the game. However, the programmers were able to make sure the game was playable and polished.
This was a super fun game to make art for and I had a great time working on it with my awesome team!
To play our game "Please Don't Let My Sunflower Die, Thanks" you can click on the link below!
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