Transformers
Niantic 2017-2019
Publishing Art Director
I had the privilege of working on one of my favorite franchises, Transformers. To my delight, the Transformers team was incredibly open to design interpretations of their beloved characters and they were a true joy to work with in the early Concept Phase of "Heavy Metal". Being a mobile game set in the real world, we knew we had a limited budget but also the challenge of making the TF's blend into the reality. For us, a possible solution was simplification of the leg panels, arms, face and the torso.
Concept Targets for AR
As I was working on the design style for Wheeljack, I referenced fan art, films, and of course closely studied the evergreen documents from the Transformers Brand team.
Cartoon vs. Realistic
Using a model from the Transformers team, we created wedges from realistic renderings to cartoon stylizations. This helped the team decide which direction felt like the right choice for this game.
Ultimately we chose a style between 40% cartoon and realistic
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UI Concepts
This being a very different kind of Transformers game, we wanted to try some unique ideas for the UI.
Map Concept
The Map is always a tricky endeavor in an AR game. You need to show the information in a clear and efficient way, as a functional map would, but also want it to be fun and appealing because well.. it's a game. Here is an example of a map where we had areas that were unclaimed/neutral, areas seized by the Decepticons as well as threatened neighboring regions, and areas occupied by the Autobots and the player. The player was tasked with saving as many regions as possible in this early iteration of the gameplay.
Marketing
We had an idea that we wanted to lean into a refreshed 1980's feeling for the Heavy Metal marketing. Cyber Punk was one direction we explored, before settling on the early 1980's feeling instead.