Birdy song (2021)
Description
Do you hear them? I wonder what they are talking about? Wait, did they just say my name?...
With the help of your own interpretations, try to unravel the language of the birds that live here. Ruth's small dictionary and diary will help you.
Who knows what new things these little inhabitants of the island will reveal to you?
Genre: puzzle
Development time: 9 months
Platform: PC, Consoles
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Team size: 1
I was responsible for
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art-direction,
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concept art,
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2D art (character, props, environment),
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sprite frame animation,
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game design and prototyping in UE4
my contributions
visual style
For the game, I decided to use a visual style that reminded me of childhood illustrations. I wanted to evoke a sense of childhood nostalgia and coziness in the game, when everything arouses curiosity, so that the player would be involved in a game about observing and learning about birds and their language.
So, in order to do this I chose warm colors as the main color palette of the game. In addition, I added special effects such as graininess, like in a film photograph, to add more ambience. My visual reference was Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kindom (2012).
Screenshot from the game
communication with birds
concept
The birds on the island give signals of four different tones. By interpreting their signals and observing the birds' reactions, the player can guess what the bird wants from the player: this is how they communicate non-verbally. Moreover, different combinations of signals can have some meaning, the study of which is the main task of Ruth. She can also respond to birds using a flute. To implement the concept, I needed to create a system of bird behavior depending on what actions the player did.
system of bird behavior
1) greeting
When the player comes within sight of the bird, the bird should greet him with a certain signal
2) repeat game
When the bird is in a playful mood, it makes a combination of sounds and expects Ruth to repeat after it. If Ruth has completed the task, the bird is happy, if Ruth is wrong, the bird is angry or shakes its head.
When a custom event is triggered, the sounds under sequence numbers in a certain combination are written to the Voice bird array:
The player responds to the bird: his signals are also written to a separate Flute array. His answer is checked by comparing the two arrays: if they coincide, the quest is considered completed, and the animation of the bird's joy is activated.
bird language dictionary
The dictionary shows the player in which direction our Ruth is thinking. Each sound has its own designation (glyph) and a set of meanings. The player can cross out the wrong values and leave the ones he or she thinks are correct.
For the UI words I used the built-in button settings (normal, pressed) in Unreal engine and changed their appearance.
character design and animation
For this game, animations were drawn frame by frame. The created pictures were turned into 2D sprites, and then Flipbooks were created based on them.
Ruth
Concept art of the main character
blue bird
The bluebird is the first creature Ruth encounters on the island. Although birds do not speak, they can still communicate nonverbally and give feedback, which is critical for building relationships. Therefore, the bluebird is very emotional.
Joy reaction
"Nope" reaction
environment design
locations
There are only 4 locations in the game at the moment:
1) The Coast,
2) Tropical Forest,
3) Entrance to the cave,
4) Underground cave.
all locations
Ruth opens the island locations gradually. The open locations are indicated on the map with the location of the birds.
places of interests
As she travels, Ruth also finds hiding places to look into and find something of value. As soon as Ruth enters the Trigger Box area, an eye appears on the screen, indicating an opportunity to explore the cache.