The player plays as a frog stuck in a time loop thanks to a curse put on it by a witch. The player also has to loop back around parts of the level to complete it fully.
I applied a style that would be loose and quick to produce, given the time frame. The objects and their placement were determined from our grey box level.
The Cursed Frog is a 2D platformer that runs on a time loop. As a frog with one busted up arm, trapped in a witches' cabin, you must swing with your tongue to collect poisons for her tea.
The theme was loop, which we based the main mechanic of the game on. You are forever trapped in the cabin, unless you can memorize the layout and quickly swing to collect the poisons.
Since illustration is my strength, I designed the frog to have one, motionless arm, which made animation faster. I also applied a heavy-handed line art and cell-shading style to the world, although the background had more details.
building the level
AJ sent me a grey-box for the level design, which I illustrated over and sent back. The design of the props matched the height-requirements and proportions needed for the tongue movement, walking and interaction.
The concept for space was lightly based on the Riverside Teahouse or Gnarled Teahouse from Baldur's Gate 3. From these images, I tried to bring natural textures and critters into the space. I wasn't as focused on the colours, but, if I were to rework this project, I would shift the palette to a darker set of values with a wider range of saturation. With this exploration, I highlighted key items such as the witches cup, with more saturated colours. Overall, the look is less serious than this game could have been.
mistakes
A larger take-away for the prop and environment design would be to design at the scale the viewer will be experiencing the layout, if given more time. While some detail and silhouette transferred to the playing screen, many of my objects, such as the table or, had distinct silhouettes that could never be seen by the player. By focusing on the grey-box at the room scale, I created a scene that could have more richness when you're at the size of a small frog.
This is the grey box of the level I was working from, as AJ laid out. We accounted for and adjusted based on our play throughs and what looked better.