Splatoon

Nintendo are my favourite video game company, and I am most excited about one of their most recent Wii U releases, Splatoon. Winning two golden joystick awards for best Nintendo game and best family game, I think there is more to Splatoon than just a unique and fun gaming experience.

Splatoon's game takes place far in the future, where humans are extinct because of rising sea levels. This then results in the transformation of squids to evolve into humanoids and become the dominant species. However, a conflict between squids and octopi emerges which leads to the "turf wars". Because of this game context, this has impacted on the set design's which are most visually striking. Mainly consisting of dismembered human buildings, complementing the apocalyptic theme. With pieces of trash showing the remainder of the destruction the humans left behind.

I love the character design. Combining both squid and human, the character design could not be more perfect at defining both qualities. I love how they have cleverly incorporated distinguishable features of the squid into the characters. Some elements of squid lie within the tentacle hair, which I find brilliant and imaginative character design. 

They also have taken the darkness around the eyes and exaggerated it to an eye mask, complementing the "heroic" feature to the inklings, in their quest to fight the evil octolings.

The idols of the game Callie and Marie, are beautifully designed and have brilliant personalities. They have been designed purely to relate to the audience of the game, Callie is sassy, loud, sexy, outgoing, girlie-girl. This is pronounced through her pink and black clothing, connoting of quite a rebel attitude, and her long hair and bow connoting of her girlie side. Marie, is the contrast, she has short hair, is timid, intelligent and clever. Together they target the majority of the audience with their relatable personalities, this unleashes the whole Callie VS Marie, which increases the game hype and therefore increases sales.

These are the keyframes for the squid to humanoid transformation, which I find really interesting to see. The process happens so fast its great to see the key frames, it really highlights all the different aspects of animation that need to be considered in gaming.

I came across this meme image, which struck quite an interesting chord:

Here, Splatoon is compared against all the other post-apocalyptic games, and it stands out dramatically. Splatoon breaks the normal conventions of post-apocalyptic and third person shooter games. It is colourful, innocent and friendly, meaning its available for a larger audience, not restricted to an 18+ age limit. This is brilliant and unique, and means that nintendo can target their message of human destruction on the earth to a younger generation.