During the second year of my illustration course, we had to create a personal project, we could choose to create anything that we liked as long as we could design & create a product that we could pitch and sell in a fictional situation.
After some thought, I decided to create my own fictional game because in my free time I love playing a variety of games and I thought that this project would flow better if I could engage with work that had an enjoyable theme.
At the time I was going through a phase of being interested in the dark woods, I loved the idea of a creepy but beautiful forest; filled with magic and cryptids. I decided to write down all of my favourite pieces of media that had these themes, such as Gravity Falls, Night In The Woods, The moose man etc.
I began to research wooded areas that had a lot of folklore or urban legends such as Oregon and the Seven Largest National Forests in America. I planned out a time table for my research and looked into several themes that were necessary within my game design, such as; Title, colour scheme, character design, dialog boxes, background etc.
I titled the game "Call of Artemis" because at the time I had taken an interest in the Greek goddess and people that still worship her as a deity to this day. Many people create alters, light candles and provide offerings for the favour of Artemis and this was very interesting to me as I thought it would be a cool concept to incorporate into my work.
When writing the plot, I had written that the forest in which the protagonist explores is enchanted and filled with mythical creatures. The main character was summoned to the forest because Artemis required their help.
Within this forest there would be no other humans present but the main character would find evidence left behind by the human followers devout to Artemis amongst the woods.
Creating the Game
After some basic research I began throwing together basic designs that would be the foundation of my final pieces. I could not decide at first what kind of cover I wanted to present as my final design.
Character Design
Protagonist Design
Villain Design
Background Designs
