Studio: Big Fish Games
Project: Sunset Riches
Role: Art Direction & Illustration
This project was a new mobile experience next to the classic Big Fish Casino app. This game captured the novelty of traveling to different iconic cities, collecting postcards and souvenirs along the way, while the player progresses through the map of the city they’re in. I joined this project during its development to help direct the look and feel of the game. The art direction strategy for Sunset Riches took inspiration from mid-century design elements with contemporary polish for the mobile experience.
Map Design & Breakdown
Key Environment Visual Development
Along with the map layout and design, I also designed other environment pieces that would be used to populate the map for each city. Each environment piece was meant to really help set the player in the “scene” while they are going through the map experience.
Assets & Style Guides
Users going through the map experience would also collect little souvenirs along the way each time they complete a slot machine and progress forward. Each city had a set of 36 souvenirs that incapsulates and represents the city. From local food, animals, buildings, and activities, each city had its own unique set that wasn’t repeated in another city. This took in depth research to create a set for each city that felt truly representative of the diverse and unique aspects of the locale. Here is the set I designed with the other lead illustrator for the Miami map.
Another aspect of this project was being able to create a style that other artists can recreate and have it look cohesive in the world of Sunset Riches. One of my key responsibilities in helping with the Art Direction of this project was to create a detailed style guide breaking down the overall design theory. Not only did this guide show how to create the actual look with textures and layer styles, but it also showed how to create an illustration with a particular situation in mind (e.g. things in water, simplifying for buildings, etc). This guide was handed to artists that would join the project for a short time to help illustrate the groups of souvenirs.