Witchy Baker - Game Concept
Video game production, illustrations, and 3D modeling
Demo Video
The main mechanics I wanted to establish in this demo are the quest system, item creation, and decorating. The decorating was a small portion at the very end, but I wanted it to be known that the trinkets you collect from NPCs, can be used as decorations.
The demo of Witchy Baker is a tutorial to show how players would interact with the world and show off the character’s personalities. The players starts off with a handful of recipes sent from Fiddle's parents, but as the game continues it encourages you to mix different ingredients and create your recipes!
This demo was created using Unity and the game creator engine, all assistants shown were free in the Unity Assets store, and any illustrated work was done by me.
The Start of Development
While attending Florida Gulf Coast University, I enrolled in a video game design course that focused on primarily level design. I came up with a video game concept that was inspired by Stardew Valley, Slime Rancher, and Animal Crossing. The game, place holder title being "Witchy Baker", is about a witch named Fiddle Fern and her rabbit familiar, Cecil. Fiddle inherits an old potion shack from her family and converts it into a cozy bakery.
In this game, the player can collect, grow, or trade ingredients to make baked goods and potions for profit. The player can decorate and revendicate the shack, as well as explore the area. Fiddle can also interact with other characters and gain friendship points to unlock a new trading system and recipes.
Demo Sprites
As I was creating the demo of the game, I created sprites for the characters that were featured: Fiddle, Cecil, Corbin, and a baby dragon.
Fiddle and Cecil were previously established in a concept pitch, but the baby dragon and Corbin were new additions to help move along the quests.
Fiddle is the player.
Cecil is a quest guide and leads the tutorial.
The baby dragon is an NPC that holds a quest.
Corbin is crow familiar and also works as a merchant in the demo.
I did not design the dragon. The original design was created by StoneSnail on the Unity Assist store, I created a talk sprite for the dragon.
Fiddle Fern - Character Revamp Sheet
Fiddle gets a new character sheet with some touch-ups, which may be subject to change. I was inspired by the cottage-core look for most of the game and I wanted to represent that in Fiddle. She is a clumsy and curious character who loves to explore and bake. Her Favorite color is green and loves all types of mushrooms for her stews and potions, Fiddle is proficient in alchemy.
Potion Designs - Sketch to Render
These potions are examples of video game production work, as well as references for when I create these potions into 3D models. The inspirations and ideas for these potions came from the specific ingredients and their uses. I also wanted to give each potion its distinct look in the color, shape, as well as the cork that is used to hold in the liquid.
I decided on modeling potions because I felt that the bottles and the items inside are just complex enough to show my understanding of 3D modeling that I learned for Blender. I also thought painting textures to the model would be very experimental to make the models feel more 3 dimensional.
Sweet Healing Potion - Rendered Image + 360
"Thick, sweet syrup that will soothe your throat and minor ailments". This is my first attempt at 3D modeling and is part of a series of other potions. I based the design on the ingredients used to make it: strawberries, honeycomb, and chamomile flowers. Most of these ingredients have soothing properties, strawberries were just a nice color addition.
Water Breathing Potion - Rendered Image + 360
"It smells a little... strange, but you can breathe under the water's surface for up to an hour". This is my second 3D model for a collection of my potions. I based the design on the ingredients used to make it: coontail plant, lizard tail, and fly agaric mushrooms. I wanted the color of the potion to use cool greens and red, while also giving a swampy atmosphere.
Sweet Healing - Geometric Modeling Process
I created a mock-up of the shape of the bottle as well as all the 3D pieces within the bottle. I thought this would ensure everything is proportional and I could pick the correct color when it came to texture painting. I made the image mock-up as a plane and placed them on X and Y axes, so when I look at the model from a front or top view I can make sure everything looks as I had planned.
These are the front and top views of the geometry of the potion bottle before smoothing the model. I used bevels to make the neck of the bottle round, I believed it added a more organic feel to the shape.
Creating the honeycomb was one of my greatest challenges while modeling. At first, I thought I could make a rough shape with a plane mesh, but then found if I used a cylinder shape and use an array modifier I could make a more "realistic" honeycomb shape.
For the strawberries, leaves, and flowers, I used path curves and turned them into meshes so I could properly color the meshes. The glass and Honey liquid had to have special glass nodes to make them see-through and have the light bounce in a realistic way.