Greyscale Photoshop Concepts

A Few greyscale concepts I have been working on in Photoshop. Struggled a bit to keep the policeman identifiable and yet have him seem a little futuristic. I can imagine this guy would be a pain to model - so much easier just to have him wear a high vis poncho. I intended this character to have some kind of stun gun, but I suppose I just got carried away.

I gave the generic thug a similar treatment, but there's a few areas I want to resolve before I post him.

A few of the heads I sketched out a few days ago - trying to get a feel for the amount of variation and character I can get into the more common types in the game.

Leaving the colour out really lets me get to grips with the form, but at some point I will be trying out a few different colour combinations to see what will work best.

Beat Cop

"Ello, ello, ello, what's all this then? I suppose you have a license for that Cobra Assault Cannon mounted on your mini? Westminster Borough Council takes a pretty dim view of that kind of thing..."

I've noticed that there's a definite bias against cars with visible wheelwells in science fiction works. Well here's my response

Detective Inspector Bilgewater

Another character idea. A no nonsense detective assigned to the Metropolitan Police Cyberpsycho department. Doesn't hunt replicants.

Cyberpunk Soho Environment and NPCs

Another, more detailed view of the alley environment. I pictured this as back doors and garages of some low-rent shops and fastfood joints on a main road. Maybe there is access to apartments above these businesses. The area will likely be littered with fast food containers and heavily graffitied.

None of these doors will be accessible and its likely that this backdrop will fill the screen in the game - there won't be any room for sky.

Few more character sketches - I like the idea of NPCs who could give the player clues, and help them solve puzzles within the game.

Not sure how well this fits with the horizontal beat-em-up genre. Probably not too well

Alley and Bystanders

A Different view of the alley - just ignore the assault rifle at the top (that was a silly idea). Our intrepid player will fight his way through this mean back alley of soho until he reaches McStarbucks Corporate Office where he will have a showdown with the CEO.

Still trying to figure out how I can make this environment more London looking - maybe some red telephone kiosks masquerading as data-terms.

These are ideas for some generic bystanders that will run away at the first sight of violence.

If accidentally mown down they will drop a tescoMetro bag with a random amount of power ups.

A cyberpunk 2020 era generic thug

Here's the basic goon. Still weighing up whether or not he should have a hood. The benefit of this would be to make the character a little more generic and mysterious.

If I give him a distinctive hairstyle its not going to be too plausible for there to be twenty guys running around with exactly the same hairstyle.

On the other hand if I make the character too generic it risks becoming boring. Getting back to how this guy would work in a game, he's going to have a knife or something rather than a gun (at least to start). Sorry there are no crow-bars in the future - except digital ones.

The guy standing next to him looks a bit like Christian Bale in a flak vest - I watched some batman movies to help steer away from the Bladerunner references.

The original idea for this game was a Streets of Rage style beat em up - not sure how this will play out in the Cyberpunk London of 2020. From what I can remember, somebody ought to be kidnapped by Mr Big, and the player must fight his way through an assortment of thugs in order to save his loved one.

Would be nice if this game had more of a puzzle element and maybe some character interaction (which was not really a feature of 80s arcade games). Seems pretty clear that the amount of shooting in this game needs to be limited.

So far, I've designed a basic goon, who will also stand in for the player, while I get the game mechanics finalised and deal with a basic environment.