RAEV: KINGDOM ON THE DISTANT SHORES
Ravine Games
In this fantastic PC game, we follow an enterprising civilization of foxes called Raevins as they explore and build a kingdom of their own. From a single house, to multi-continent civilizations, we sought to introduce this game to the world with a lush animation style that pulled inspiration from Hayao Miyazaki films. We had a blast bringing this indie game to life.
THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
We created short animated sequences that stitched together key aspects of gameplay. These tell a story of a father and daughter imagining a kingdom, building it, celebrating it and ruling justly over their expanding world. We created a style that interpreted the fox characters from the game and created an appealing illustration style that expanded on the games initial look and feel. After that, we picked narrative moments that best told the story of this father/daughter team as they expand their kingdom.
VISUAL DEVELOPMENT
CHARACTER DESIGN
The Raevins are a civilization of foxes. These characters came to us with an established animated style from the game’s assets. We used that initial look as a starting point and pitched a narrow but varied selection of character styles that were influenced by traditional anime. The most interesting part of the challenge was showing the characters as they age. They must look like themselves but look and feel older. Even though we only had two characters to design, we still needed four fleshed out concepts to establish the story of this particular family dynasty.
CHARACTER DESIGN
The Raevins are a civilization of foxes. These characters came to us with an established animated style from the game’s assets. We used that initial look as a starting point and pitched a narrow but varied selection of character styles that were influenced by traditional anime. The most interesting part of the challenge was showing the characters as they age. They must look like themselves but look and feel older. Even though we only had two characters to design, we still needed four fleshed out concepts to establish the story of this particular family dynasty.
THE KINGDOM ON THE DISTANT SHORE
This game is all about building your own kingdom, and so early game play gave us a window into what those kingdoms look like. From there we took those environments and translated them into an evocative painted style. These locations had to be cinematic and carry a sense of history to their design. While staying close to the art of the game, we fleshed out each location to feel like an expansive world that players would want to explore.
THE KINGDOM ON THE DISTANT SHORE
This game is all about building your own kingdom, and so early game play gave us a window into what those kingdoms look like. From there we took those environments and translated them into an evocative painted style. These locations had to be cinematic and carry a sense of history to their design. While staying close to the art of the game, we fleshed out each location to feel like an expansive world that players would want to explore.
OUR PROCESS
Our process is all about finding high impact moments that pack a ton of story into a short amount of time. This is the story of father and daughter arriving in a valley, building a kingdom and becoming masters of their domain. Each shot conveys a passage of time, a sky rocketing progression and story that players can make their own.
ANIMATIC
Animatics give us a chance to lay a solid foundation for the story as it intercuts with gameplay footage and our animation. Early on, we establish timing, major story beats. This gives a playground of possibilities and ideas that add a more punch and flavor to the experience. Brick by brick, we build a memorable and endearing story of love and ambition that shows off the game play.
FINAL ANIMATION
After we work out the pacing and story in the animatic it is time to focus on polish and performances. Final animation is all about finding the emotional heart of the story and expressing that through character expressions that are appealing and vivid. A majority of our time is spent breathing life into each character so that they feel natural and propel the emotional heart of the story forward.
ANIMATIC
Animatics give us a chance to lay a solid foundation for the story as it intercuts with gameplay footage and our animation. Early on, we establish timing, major story beats. This gives a playground of possibilities and ideas that add a more punch and flavor to the experience. Brick by brick, we build a memorable and endearing story of love and ambition that shows off the game play.
FINAL ANIMATION
After we work out the pacing and story in the animatic it is time to focus on polish and performances. Final animation is all about finding the emotional heart of the story and expressing that through character expressions that are appealing and vivid. A majority of our time is spent breathing life into each character so that they feel natural and propel the emotional heart of the story forward.
EXPLORE THE WORLD OF RAEV
This was a special project for us that created opportunities to explore the world Raev. It is a small indie project with a lot of heart. We balanced super tight deadlines and turned around with our experienced team of 2d animators . Our 2d pipeline and artists knocked it out of the park and to a world on a distant shore.
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