Under Pressure - Devlog #4: Cards Design Part.1

📢 Go play Under Pressure for free on Itch.io and Steam! 📢

I am working on visuals improvements for next update! Check it on my socials!
Mangouste make all art on my games, follow her on Instagram!

Art Adaptation

Under Pressure is a video game adaptation of Tim Fower's "Fugitive" board game.
Gameplay is based on cards. Values goes from #0 to #42 and show the escape of a Thief chased by a Detective.

We decided to adapt the game in a 1930's underwater style. With a Diver whishes to reach surface and a Kraken chasing him.
We were excited about this idea as it could be challenging enough to make, with a lot of references and easy to create an atmosphere with sounds and FXs.

Diver was the perfect character to work on our human style. We wanted a comic style that can be easy to reproduce, recognizable and have poses that we could reuse in the future.

Kraken was the perfect nemesis in this art style. It could be majestic and far bigger than Diver, to easily create a more powerful feeling.

We loved the idea to tell the story of the escape with the cards. Start card #0 as deepness, and final card #42 as Diver's boat. Between both each steps could be more and more brighter to show progression.  We also decomposed the progress with the three decks boundaries (1-14 15-28 29-41), each has it own characteristics, for example:

• First Deck: Shark and a lot of void
• Second Deck: Jellyfishes and fishes
• Third Deck: Corals and relics

There is no influence on gameplay, but it helps a lot to create an atmosphere within the game and also add colour into it.

In-game Card

In game, a card is composed of several elements:

• Value of card from #0 to 42
• Needed boosts to play it
• Illustration to symbolize progression
• Glow on/off to show if playable

We will talk more about cards design and story in next devlog #5. Stay tune to be notified! 

Bonus: The whole storyboard of Under Pressure

Support our games!

🙏 You can help us by giving with Itch.io's Support feature! It will really help us to continue making our games. Or buy our first game "The Bastonnes" on Steam

For now, we are working on Under Pressure's updates and we start working on the next projects. If you want to get the latest news, follow us on Twitter, Instagram or join our Discord server!