Day 12: School Layout Concepts (Patreon)

The school's layout is very utilitarian - a lot of straight lines and right angles. This is accurate to the design of Japanese educational institutions in real life, but I've often worried that it makes the level design feel very boring. So, at various points throughout the game's development, I've asked concept artist to re-design the layout of the school. Above, you'll see a bunch of different designs that were created for the school environment!

(You'll notice that some of the concept artwork was created with watercolor. It's hard to explain why, but it just makes me really happy whenever I see "traditional media" in this day and age!)

The game's original Shower Building was just a white rectangle. You'll find some artwork here depicting one of the ideas for sprucing it up - showing some plants growing up along the side of the building. This is an idea that I reconsider from time to time.

Also, I really like the outdoor cafeteria concept art that you'll see here. It looks so much better than the one in-game. I'm not sure if that's because of the extra trees, the awning and walls, or just the way that things are arranged.

Finally, towards the end, you'll find a small "Style Guide" and "Shape Guide" that was created to explain to artists and modelers what colors/shapes something should use in order to match the "Akademi Aesthetic." I'll probably share that one in a future blog post.

By the way - if you're getting tired of environment concept art, don't worry! This is the final day that will be dedicated to such artwork. From here on out, it'll be other things aside from environments.