IMBER - Atmospheric Puzzle Game

IMBER

About

IMBER is an atmospheric puzzle game set in a world full of water magic.

We are a team of two, consisting of an artist and a designer who learned we work together well. We chose to do this vertical slice as our graduation project in order to develop our skills as generalists in our respective fields, and learn new things.

The project duration was 5 months, and we're hoping to conclude and release this vertical slice in July 2023. Please feel free to check it out at IMBER itch page which will be live soon!

But for now, I hope you enjoy looking through the progress shots in this Rookies entry.

Thank you for your time! 

Concept

Initially, we aimed for a more minimalist, almost blocky visual style. Throughout time and through a lot of research, it developed into what it is now. We tried to go for something mysterious, flowy and stick to mostly round architecture.

The dark levels are something I was very passionate about creating, really pushing the mysterious feeling of the game.

Environment

The water shaders are from the stylized pack on Unreal Marketplace. The rest of the assets, such as foliage, architecture, props and materials were created by me.

Throughout this year, I also became really passionate about materials, and so I learned Substance Designer. These are some of the textures from the game.

Hand painted foliage, created in Procreate.

The post-processing was a result of collaboration between both of us, as we had fun with shaders and materials and learned a lot.

Initial 3D environment concepts vs. current environment.

Character

For this game, we had the character chosen from the beginning: an old story character of mine, a water priestess named Obsidian.

This was my first time creating a character model, so she is rather flawed. However, I had a great time doing it.

I had to re-do the model to fit the new direction of the game at some point, removing the armor and re-doing the textures.

UI/UX and graphic design

We stuck with a minimalist and mysterious style for the UI/UX and graphic design of the game. The style and the fonts we chose were inspired by Hollow Knight.

I created many different symbols that we can use as decals.

Technical Art

The landscape tool, made in Houdini, was created to mimic the limestone travertines, a shape rather difficult to re-create in the Unreal Engine landscape tool. This tool allows for placement of water and foliage along the terraces of the landscape.

Credit: Olivier Dral

Marketing and 2D art

The splash art(s) were created by the incredible Vassil Mihaylov. Please check out his other work on his Artstation!

Process of the current splash art, from colored thumbnails until the current version!

First splash art, from a long time ago.

Final word

Thank you so much for looking at our work. As a student about to graduate, I am happy I have learned many different skills throughout my time at the university, and became a generalist of a sort. It was my dream to create something on my own or with my close friends, and I am happy I had the chance to do it.

I hope you enjoyed the post!

Credits

Art by:
Reina H (Concept, character, environment, UI/UX)
Websites:
Artstation
Twitter
Itch

Design by:
Jeroen V (System design, level design, technical design, UI/UX)
Websites:
Twitter
Itch

Supervisors: Remco Willemsen, Ard Bonewald

Technical art: Olivier Dral - Artstation

Splash art: Vassil Mihaylov - Artstation

Additional thanks to Tamara Besselsen and Alicia Heredia for your advice and feedback, and the assets you are working on that will be included in the final version of the project.

Additional credits to:

3DEX on YouTube (Substance Designer tutorials)

Unreal Engine water pack (water shaders, waterfalls)

BUas community of students and teachers for your help, advice, ideas and inspiration!

Abertay University game students for your help and advice during the first half of this year, and trying to help me with the post-processing in this project. You guys are awesome!