Game Development (Exercise 2)

Game Development Exercise 2：Indiviual Asset Creation

7 October2025- 9 October 2025
LI YUHAN (0379857)

This week's assignment is to create 3D assets for our game project. I chose to develop a childhood model of the protagonist "Xiaoyu" for my narrative puzzle game The Shadow Formula, along with a key environmental object—a small kitchen from memory.

Designing Character Appearances

My concept for the protagonist, Xiao Yu, is a rebellious little girl who loves candy. Thus, I envisioned her as a girl in a skirt with twin ponytails, her arms crossed to convey her defiant nature and hint at the misunderstanding with her mother.

My initial character designs aimed for greater detail, but since my game style relies on silhouettes that illuminate during gameplay, I abandoned all the original details. Instead, I focused on refining the character using black and white to make her vivid and three-dimensional.

I. Creative Inspiration and Design Goals

The core of Shadow's Recipe revolves around light, shadow, and memory. Therefore, my primary goal in asset creation is not to pursue complex or highly detailed models, but to remain faithful to the game's "silhouette" art style.

Core Visual Concept: The game's world is constructed from memories. Memories often lack clear details, retaining only a vague yet profound outline. Thus, I decided all models would use pure black materials, relying on contours and form to convey information.

Narrative-Driven Design: The protagonist, Xiao Yu, required a distinctive twin-ponytail silhouette to ensure clear recognition even in silhouette form. The kitchen serves as the central scene where conflicts arise between her and her mother over dietary restrictions due to "diabetes," functioning as a vessel for emotional memories.

II. Modeling Process:

1. Protagonist "Xiaoyu" (Childhood):

Starting from a basic low-poly model, I focused on sculpting the contours of her twin ponytails and dress. The process felt like sculpting—constantly switching viewports in Blender to ensure this black silhouette remained recognizable as a little girl from every angle.

Challenges Encountered: Achieving the physical form of the pigtails and their natural transition to the head proved difficult. Initial versions resembled two rigid horns. By employing a simple Subdivision Surface modifier and manually adjusting vertices, I refined their shape to better mimic real hair contours.Reflection on the outcome: Though simple—even somewhat "rough"—the final model successfully captures the character's essence. In Godot, when she stands with her back to the light source, that distinct black silhouette with twin ponytails is exactly what I envisioned—not a specific "person," but a symbol of the "childhood self" residing in every player's memory.

2. Environmental Object:

or the kitchen modeling, I focused on creating a set of contours that evoke a "homey" feel. I crafted a stove, sink, cabinets, and a central dining table.

Design Thought: I deliberately placed several cakes and an inconspicuous medicine bottle on the dining table. This directly echoes the game's storyline: At the birthday party, the delicious cake (temptation) and the medicine bottle (restraint) create the most direct emotional conflict.

Reflection on the outcome: Though composed of simple geometric shapes, when combined, this scene gives birth to a memory space rich with narrative. It is no longer just a kitchen, but a stage where an emotional drama is about to unfold.

Through this asset creation, I learned the most important lesson: in game design, stylization and consistency matter far more than polygon count. A "simple" model that aligns with the game's overall art direction holds far greater value than an elaborate yet stylistically disjointed one.

KItchen

"Xiao yu"

Moving forward, my plans include:

Optimizing Xiaoyu's model: Adding basic rigging to enable foundational idle animations, such as fidgety foot-tapping, to enhance character liveliness.

Expanding environment assets: Creating additional scenes within Memory Fragments, like bedrooms and living rooms, ensuring all adhere to a unified silhouette aesthetic.

Develop shadow generation logic: Next, I'll focus on writing Godot scripts to implement the core gameplay mechanic of "materializing" shadows of specific objects into standable platforms.

in Godot

Change another light