Storyboarding: Tokyo Street Pirates - Inspiration

In this storyboard of Tokyo Street Pirates, I tried to explore the first level of the game, and some of the personalities of the game.  It's still a rather basic storyboard, though a bit lengthy for a battle scene that only takes place in one room.  In any case, my goal with Tokyo Street Pirates was to create an old classic styled game, with the hopes of inspiring players to want to go and visit Tokyo.  This is perhaps the biggest reason, but also to inspire people to go out on their own adventures.  The plot for the game was to be somewhat set up like Metro City in Final Fight for the SNES.  I thought it would be amazing to have a 2D side scrolling fighter take place in the famous districts in Tokyo like: Shibuya, Akihabara, Shinjuku, etc.  This would also be a good way to introduce the culture of these areas and to reveal landmarks, like Tokyo Tower, or even the Tokyo Big Sight which is famous for many anime conventions.  I wanted a game to bring fans together, and also travelors and natives alike.  The great thing about classical side scrollers is that many of them are multi player, not in the way games are today with online technology, but in the old fashion style of arcades where all players must stand together in front of the machine and enjoy the excitement and adventure together.  I would love to see this game made, but even if it was I would be even more pleased to find it made as an arcade machine where up to 6 players could enjoy the adventure together.  This is something I feel that has been lost from the online gaming experience, real social interaction.  From my experiences games can be tools to help people bond together, or they can also be tools to help alienate human interaction.  If I have any say in the matter, as a designer, I hope to bring people together and inspire them. 

Storyboard: Tokyo Street Pirates - Level 1

The Detective

This was a lot of fun, took some time though.  The mood that hit me was a detective's reaction after hearing some gun shots following a lead in a hotel.  What's going to happen next?  Are gangsters going to spray bullets all over the room with their tommy guns?  Or, is the detective going to barge into the next room only to find another corpse on the floor with the murderer escaped out the fire escape. 

Black and white charcoal on toned paper.

Project Tokyo Street Pirates: Character Designs

I have just started a project, a side scroller beat 'em up action game.  It's just a storyboard conceptual design project.  I already have made some art work, such as the Daisuke character turnaround, which is the main character of the project.  Here are three more character designs: Mina, Lily, and Kenji.  They are the other playable characters for this four player game.  Though, however, I think it would be cool to eventually have this be a six player game, with maybe 8-10 characters to choose from.  Unfortunately, I don't have time to complete such a grand project before Finals are due T_T.  I will be posting new art work, and eventually the storyboard.  Hopefully, you'll see that this should be made into a real game.  And, not just that, but into a classic arcade game for friends to play together at the mall.  (Do they even make Arcades any more?)