More Villains: part 1 - Snowman

Since the game is called The Elf Who Killed Christmas (here), it made the most sense to begin this development blog talking about elves (you can review those here). However, there are several more villains in the game beyond elves. In fact, the first enemy that is encountered in the game is a snowman.

We figured that since this was a Christmas game, there must be a snowman! It is easy to recall, when we were children, all the silly stop-motion animated films that would play on television during the Christmas season. Among those shows, the Frosty the Snowman stands out in my memory. As can be seen, we clearly did not go in the direction of that film, but we knew that, being a villain in the game, we would have to get a design that sold the character as a villain. 

In this detail, you can see it was important for us to get the sharp teeth, the crooked nose, and bow-knotted tree limbs as arms. We thought that these were all important features to include for a scary character. However, some of the more classic elements of the character that we included are the top-hat, and the scarf. One limitation regarding the scarf, though, was that if we kept it hanging down, long, then it would be that much more difficult to animate. So a hanging scarf was cut out altogether. I faced a similar problem with the pieces of coal that might have represented coat buttons going down his torso. Even though these elements do go missing, I think that I prefer this pared down design a bit more, and it fits into the game quite nicely. 

Visit the game's website, and download the demo!
http://elfwhokilledchristmas.com/
http://giveupgames.com/