Thoughts On Developing Educational Mobile Game #1

To me, one of the most important elements of a successful educational game for preschoolers is the ability to capture their attention. One way to do this is to have characters who show appealing personalities. The younger the child, the bigger the language barrier is to communicating the character's personality. Thus, I'm using pantomime to convey personality in the game play actions.

The preschool player should be entertained by the way the character performs the actions chosen.

I'm also planning a variety of ways each character can do a specific action, so that the player won't become quickly bored with the actions they are controlling. I want various versions of the actions be programmed to come up in random order, so that it'll be a surprise to the player which one appears. It'll be like the character has made it's own decision how to perform the action.

Various Bear Actions Across The Screen

Educational Mobile Game

Well, it's been a long time since I've posted. For one reason or another, I haven't had much new to add to what I've already said in previous posts. Now I do!

I'm starting my educational mobile game project for preschoolers and I'd like to post my progress as I develop it.

Here's the logo for the game:

Milt Kahl Letter

It has been a while since I've posted, so I thought I'd look through my files for something different to add to my blog.

I found this treasured response from Milt Kahl, to whom I had sent a fan letter back in 1982. I had just finished animating on Rock & Rule, and wanted to let Mr. Kahl know that his work had been an inspiration to me.

Here is his response.

A Future For Traditional Hand Drawn 2D Animation?

I've started developing a 2D video game to be played on mobile phones. It's a basic gather and chase game using one of my studio's animated characters as the hero.

As I develop the game, I'm concentrating on short animation cycles that convey my hero's personality...very much of a throw back to early cartoon pantomime. Makes me think "is this the future for 2D animation?" By the way, I'm drawing pencil on paper and scanning the drawings into Photoshop.

I find myself approaching the project as an early Fleischer cartoon in that I'm not censoring my imagination at this point of development. The characters in my game will perform actions that are eccentric and fanciful, as well as realistic. The overall design of the game will embrace both caricature and cartoony elements. Right now, I'm jotting down all ideas that come to mind. But the most important element is the playability of the game! Without that nobody will buy it!
I'm writing and designing this game as though it were a traditional cartoon short with a sympathetic and relatable character...but with the viewer being able to guide the main character past the villains and obstacles to a successful conclusion. The fun is that it is all action with sound effects and music,etc.

 

The Animator's Team

Historically, the best way of producing animation in terms of both creativity and hitting production quotas was to set up animation units, whereby the various members of a unit could concentrate on certain aspects of bringing a scene to life. This was how the Disney studio set up its animation teams. At its most successful, it made for a great sense of pride and security amongst the team members that they could count on one another to get the job done.

It was also a great way of having an apprenticeship program by which everyone had the opportunity of being trained to go up to the next level; or it became apparent that a person could not handle the next stage and he/she'd gone as far as ability would let them. (The fact there was studio politics that stood in the way of deserving talent does not diminish the validity of this team concept.)

Before there were animation schools, on-the-job training was the only way to learn more than just the basics (which you can teach yourself). Even today, an apprenticeship program would be the best way of developing animation talent. But that would mean a commitment by the studio to keeping its artists employed from production to production.


The following is a basic Old School Unit the way I remember it on the feature Raggedy Ann & Andy:
1) Animator
2) Rough Inbetweener
3) Assistant Animator
4) Breakdown Assistant
5) Clean Inbetweener

Work flow:
The Animator draws the rough keys and eccentric partials. These are shot for a pose test. When the pose test is okayed by the director, the scene goes to the Rough Inbetweener who rough inbetweens the entire scene for the first action pencil test.

Once the director okays the rough pencil test, the Animator may go back in and add the important lip sync (if he hasn't already included it in his rough pass). The Assistant Animator then cleans up the keys, making adjustments so that the character is on model, and checks the exposure sheets to make sure that any leveling of the figures, overlays, etc. are correct.


The Breakdown Assistant then cleans up and completes any eccentric partials and crucial inbetweens, leaving the Clean Inbetweener to finish off the rest of the drawings.

But let's not come away with the mistaken idea that working this way was a bed of roses. The pressure on the artist to produce has always been enormous. The following is a 1976 cartoon by Eric Goldberg showing a bit of foxhole humor during my last few days on Raggedy Ann and Andy. I was leaving to start my first gig as an animator at Nelvana...and there was the assumption that I would be introducing Hollywood animation production methods to that studio in the Great White North.

INSPIRATIONAL SKETCHES #2: Rough House Comedy

I'll use inspirational sketches to work out the basic staging for a physical gag.

Shown below is a walk-through of the ape triplets each trying to be the first to get out of an airplane. The ape triplets are very much Three Stooges-like: Larry (Algeria), Curly (Angola), and Moe (Zaire). 

In order to be successful, the gag will have to rely on the animator's sense of physical timing and acting ability.

Question for you: What's the funniest gag that you have seen in animated films of the past 20 years? Was it based on personality or surprise?

INSPIRATIONAL SKETCHES #1: Poses Portraying Character Interaction

As a director, I like to use inspirational sketches as a way to give aid and guidance to storyboard artists. For me, the entertainment value is more about character performance than camera angles. If the storyboard artist has a better way to convey the performance and/or the camera angle, then great! We'll use that!

But I believe that an animation director should be able to at least use quick sketches to convey how he/she envisions the acting in the script. The director should give a starting point for the storyboard artist to work from...after all, the director should be the one with the overall vision for the film.

Here are some of my inspirational sketches showing the ape triplets (Algeria, Angola, and Zaire) interacting. Sometimes they fight. Sometimes they act as one.

These sketches were gathered together onto model sheets to show personality attitudes.

The ape triplets are very much Three Stooges-like Larry, Curly, and Moe