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Conceptual Work 1

Chandra Cassini storyboard

For Unstable Scientific we intend to have cutscenes, but at this moment are still uncertain if they will be animated or a series of images. Temporarily we settled on having rough, storyboard-like placeholders to keep the flow of the game as it becomes more complete.

These are images from parts of Chandra Cassini’s backstory. She was a test pilot who noticed anomalies in an experimental type of engine while flying over high-altitude lightning. For her story I did a deep dive into the topic, reading Skunkworks and Sled Driver, researching the lives of test pilots and other Air Force servicepeople.

The most difficult part finding out if, as a commercial or Air Force pilot, you have to be careful about reporting strange things you see while flying. It is said that it took a long time for red sprites and other atmospheric lightning to be confirmed by science, since the only people who could see it close-up were high altitude pilots - and they were afraid to be taken in for psychological evaluations that could cost them their jobs. I wanted to make sure that this was a real thing and not an urban legend, but ultimately had to find actual pilots to email and speak to.

The test craft’s simple, sleek appearance was a deliberate choice and design - its powerful, engines driven by an exotic fuel source aren’t internal combustion based, so it wouldn’t have many of the complex lines to mix fuel and oxygen. I kept the nose cones because even though they wouldn’t serve the same purpose as they would in an SR-72, they are a visual reminder of a craft’s power and its purpose to be flown on earth, not in space! Chandra’s suit is actually based off the SR-72 suit with all its straps and rigging, but not the same helmet.

damselfly enemy’s flight challenge

One of the enemies you encounter in the game is a giant damselfly that swoops at you from above. Since it’s a 2D game, a dragonfly’s wings would be seen edge-on, whereas a damselfly’s wings rise above its abdomen and therefore look much better. Unfortunately, slow-motion damsel flight videos turned out to be considerably rarer than those of dragonflies.
My hunt for references took me to unusual places such as a paper by Japanese researchers in the 1980s studying the flight mechanics of damselfly wings, down to the forces acting on individual sections. I assembled a sequence of images from the paper into a usable gif. There was also a paper studying the fluid dynamics of damselfly flight, complete with a simulation. All of this resulted in the pixel art wing animation seen below!

Some of the references I used for accuracy.

Boss Bot

This is one of the bosses you have to fight in the game, the product of AI cores gone wrong due to the use of absurdium in the processors. Because it was actually constructed by a being from a universe next door, I wanted it to have a more organic look than the other drones you fight. Of course HR Giger’s biomechanicals came to mind, but I wanted to find my own way to the inspiration that drove Alien, Metroid and so many other classics that use that aesthetic.

There’s an elaborate process for taking this bot down, but the primarily goal is to get it to open its AI core doors and knock the 8 glowing blue cores out of their pods.

Some of the paper sketches. I used insect shells and sea urchin patterns for a lot of the repeating elements.

Bubble Level Art

In order to create a level that had the iridescent feel and geometry of foam bubbles, it was important to understand a little bit about how they worked. Simply looking at reference images didn’t cut it, because you had to know how to continue where they left off. I ended up reading a book about foam this spring and looking at a number of bubble simulators while working on this…and I still feel as though I didn’t quite get it right.

Preliminary Sketches

Some of the other assets and a creature designed for the “bubble level”. Click on the thumbnails to see it in proper size and resolution!