As you might have noticed, I’m no real artist, per se.
I’m learning something new everyday and especially the combination of colors is something that I find extremely interesting, yet I fail to grasp how it works, all the time 
So I was kinda proud that I accidentally stumbled over something that was close to calling it a “theme” for our game.
It features the combination of “real” materials like the wooden border with some more futuristic use of gradients for the title and menus. I enjoy the combination of the retro and futuristic parts of that thought.
However when putting in the green grass and orange floor it kinda looks weird on the iPad, themewise. The blue ground still is my favorite field so far. It just plays nicely with the noble wood border, in terms of the RetroFuture aspect.
So I was thinking and thinking on how I could tie the 2 elements more together and thought “hey, why not play around with the puck and playfield colors a bit”.
One hour later this is where I ended up for now:
First iteration
It featured a set of 5 distinct technorainbow colors that look rather funky next to each other, right ?
I then added a more complex version of a puck instead of the polished/shiny plastic one, so it fits with every single of the 5 playfield variants, which was problematic with the strong red and blue variants that we feature in the current build.
Second thoughts
It looks nice and all, however I felt I should try another version which toyed with the pucks color a bit. Due to all the different colors it was (for me) impossible to find that one color that could be used throughout all of the playfields that didn’t make my eyes jump out of my skull and commit suicide.
So with some cliché multiply/overlay tests I found the nice strong and glowing combination below. I’d really like to test this version as well. It has a much more interesting and eye-catching factor to it, while still staying within the theme. However it might a tad overboard and less subtle – which was my initial idea for the game.
Third time’s the charm
The last iteration is a mixture of both worlds. It features the colored pucks as well but with less sparkle, glow and saturation. I would love to test this version as well, just to see how my eyes trick me into preferring this or that while on the iPad it looks totally different, cooler or less cool.
Personally I looooove the new look since it has a much more interesting, colorful and stylized approach to it. But now all of the menu mockups as well as the game’s logo are slightly questioned again.
Colorwise it’s really nice how the logo is set apart. But since the game doesn’t feature the plastic pucks anymore it seems misplaced to have it on the game title. Still it looks cool in a way, in my opinion.
Argh, what shall we do ?
Happens to me all the time. Circular development is something I’m horribly good at. “Oh I don’t like this aspect, let’s change it….Whoa looks great, but now this and that doesn’t fit.”
I guess the only way out of it is to:
1) Develop all art assets on one weekend and never touch it again
2) Iterate and gather feedback to make best of both worlds
I choose the sandwich !
But, uh, shouldn’t the pucks be colored differently depending on who owns them? Am I missing something?
About the colors, I vote for the first iteration. Mainly because in the more “shiny” ones the rubber band loses it’s rubberbandishness and looks like a neon. Curious to see how you’ll color them though. And I also vote for blue as my favorite background. It’s such a beautiful hue
Love where all this is going.
Gogogo pucks! And I’m sorry, but I had the sandwich for breakfast, so it’s gone
Yeh that was a totally honest mistake. The pucks need to have the same color since its just about having all pucks in the other half. And it was highly confusing to have 2 different colors since people were assuming the same thing as you did
The rubberband is not included in the pictures
I like the first iteration most, too – but up to now I havn’t understood how the rubberband (like in the tech-demo-videos) will be implemented.
Do they appear as soon as the player touches the field?
Did you try to differentiate the two field through color or patterns? I think that could help to understand the difference a bit more and probable a dotted line between the fields? Like the stripes in the middle of the streets.
The rubberband is always there. It’s just me doing stupid things with old and new mockups, recoloring and painting over it. Without really putting attention to it. Didn’t notice until it was uploaded.
Sloppy me
Didn’t try out different fields, up to now.
Lukas doesn’t like the techno route. I think we have to rethink this entire theme thing