BIGsheep
11-26-2007, 10:44 AM
On 1st December 2006 a brightly coloured garden simulator for the Xbox 360 hit the shelves of the United Kingdom. It was called Viva Piņata and since its launch a dedicated and committed group of fans have worked tirelessly to find every secret, discover every Wildcard and perfect their digital, green-fingered skills.
To count down to VP’s UK birthday I have collected a group of seldom seen artwork that spans the game’s entire life time and will, just like an advent calendar, reveal a nugget each day to you.
Rather than attempt to over explain the situation, I’m just going to dive straight in and give you Day 1’s offering: entitled “Origins”, this slide shows the real beginnings of Viva Pinata.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2397/2066049618_a1a314b764_d.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2066049618&size=o)
On the right-hand side we have the original design document written by Tim Stamper many, many years ago. Although short, it still embodies the original, core gameplay that you can still see in today’s Viva Piņata: gardening, animals and the ability to trade.
During this early period, though, Xbox Live had not really taken off to the extent that you see today and so the chosen platforms were mobile phones and PDAs. The screenshot harks back to this time.
If you look closely at the image (click on it for a blown-up version), you can see that there were already trees, flowers, and ponds available for the discerning gardener. As for animals, you can see a pony and a warren of rabbits playing by the water’s edge.
The more eagle-eyed may also be able to spot a character or two borrowed from Banjo. When concepting a product it can always be prudent to borrow assets wherever possible so as to get things up and running quickly.
Here is a closer look at the animals in that screenshot.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2265/2066049994_e361b22496_d.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2066049994&size=o&context=photostream)
To the right are Ryan’s concept sketches. His first batch of animals were based around simple cartoon characters with a pastel colour spin and, as you can see, they don’t resemble the piņatas that you know and smash today at all.
In the main image you can find a cute little bunny-wunny being shadowed by a larger pink horse (or pony - hard to tell). These both obviously made it to the final cut but with drastic changes - the rabbit alone changed colour, style, posture and size.
This was still too conventional, though, and easy to lose in the mass of games that featured animals at the time. To try and get a unique style, Ryan went back to the drawing board and tomorrow we’ll see what he came up with.
Next: Day 2 (http://pinataisland.info/forum/showthread.php?p=108235#post108235)
To count down to VP’s UK birthday I have collected a group of seldom seen artwork that spans the game’s entire life time and will, just like an advent calendar, reveal a nugget each day to you.
Rather than attempt to over explain the situation, I’m just going to dive straight in and give you Day 1’s offering: entitled “Origins”, this slide shows the real beginnings of Viva Pinata.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2397/2066049618_a1a314b764_d.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2066049618&size=o)
On the right-hand side we have the original design document written by Tim Stamper many, many years ago. Although short, it still embodies the original, core gameplay that you can still see in today’s Viva Piņata: gardening, animals and the ability to trade.
During this early period, though, Xbox Live had not really taken off to the extent that you see today and so the chosen platforms were mobile phones and PDAs. The screenshot harks back to this time.
If you look closely at the image (click on it for a blown-up version), you can see that there were already trees, flowers, and ponds available for the discerning gardener. As for animals, you can see a pony and a warren of rabbits playing by the water’s edge.
The more eagle-eyed may also be able to spot a character or two borrowed from Banjo. When concepting a product it can always be prudent to borrow assets wherever possible so as to get things up and running quickly.
Here is a closer look at the animals in that screenshot.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2265/2066049994_e361b22496_d.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2066049994&size=o&context=photostream)
To the right are Ryan’s concept sketches. His first batch of animals were based around simple cartoon characters with a pastel colour spin and, as you can see, they don’t resemble the piņatas that you know and smash today at all.
In the main image you can find a cute little bunny-wunny being shadowed by a larger pink horse (or pony - hard to tell). These both obviously made it to the final cut but with drastic changes - the rabbit alone changed colour, style, posture and size.
This was still too conventional, though, and easy to lose in the mass of games that featured animals at the time. To try and get a unique style, Ryan went back to the drawing board and tomorrow we’ll see what he came up with.
Next: Day 2 (http://pinataisland.info/forum/showthread.php?p=108235#post108235)