Interview | Nathan Jurevicius talks to Ab about Scarygirl
Scarygirl Game, Nathan Jurevicius
Nathan Jurevicius is an Australian artist and illustrator, who has achieved cult status for his best loved creation – Scarygirl. Scarygirl is a curious child, abandoned at birth, searching for her identity with the help of her guardian, Blister the octopus, and Bunniguru, the mystic rabbit.
I was delighted when I recently discovered the newly launched Scarygirl gaming site, intrigued to find that the familiar collectible figure had been transported into a new online world – in a sophisticated and visually captivating browser based platform game. (Warning: some players may find it addictive.)
Here Nathan kindly talks about his reasons for bringing Scarygirl to life via a gaming site…
About Scarygirl
* I’ve read in other interviews that the Scarygirl character was originally created for an online game almost 10 years ago – how do you feel the finished product measure up to your original idea?
The recent online game is not really comparable to the original idea. Way back when it was first conceived the gameplay was very experimental and quite small. The concept was based around a homeless Scarygirl who would wander various locations in search of approval/friends.
In each level she would be presented with a small task or activity (like putting on a puppet show made of junk) and depending on the score you were rated by the ‘audience’. I feel like the game now has far exceeded my expectations on many levels and think this is just the start of something bigger for her in regards to gaming.
* So where did the inspiration for the Scarygirl character come from?
I used to be an editorial illustrator for a number of magazines and in one particular piece I created a series of small incidental characters in the background of a larger illustration. One of these characters became the starting point for Scarygirl (very different to what you see now).
Around the same time my daughter was sick and spent a little while in hospital having tubes stuck into her and various tests… she looked quite scary (fortunately everything was fine but the image was lasting and also added to the Scarygirl inspiration).
Scarygirl game, Nathan Jurevicius (trailer)
Animating Scarygirl
* Is this the first time Scarygirl has been animated? Would you ever consider moving into animation?
This is the first time we have officially seen her animated, and this was actually a challenge for us. We knew we had limited resources, and we wanted the animation to be reflective, or as good as it could be given it was her animated introduction.
Sophie and I worked with Animation Director Chris Hauge from Halo Pictures up front to work through some basic animated cycles of Scarygirl herself. These were then supplied to the in-game animator. The introductory trailer is I guess more along the lines that Sophie from Passion Pictures Australia and I will be exploring and pushing the animation to a much higher level than an online Flash experience.
* How did you find working on the project with a team of programmers and animators? Could you tell us how you worked together to translate your illustrations into a Flash game?
It was a pretty tiny team (only 2 programmers and one in-game animator) so fortunately there was no massive committee meetings to get a approvals from. That being said it was a challenge at times to have to simplify my artwork and lose some of the control of how everything should look.
If we were doing something for the Playstation/Xbox etc we could have gone crazy on the artwork and not been concerned with download times, using vectors for everything, better lighting/fx etc.
The process was relatively smooth. I would be given a dummy layout of the background and then go over that in Illustrator and provide each level as finished art. The programmers then worked out a way to pre-render the vectors and turn them into very small background bitmaps. The animated characters and certain small objects are purely vector.
* How long did the project take to develop from storyboard to finished product?
It was about one and a half years in the making. This was part-time, as the project was only budgeted for about 9 months work – so there’s a bunch of love and sweat in this game too.
Scarygirl game, Nathan Jurevicius (Dr Maybee's lab)
* Is this the first gaming project you’ve worked on? Are you keen to work on more in the future?
I’ve worked with a few companies creating mini flash games in the past. These have always been quite simple and usually just a single level. I’m very keen to push and redevelop the Scarygirl game onto a console or handheld device… hopefully part 2 of the game where they encounter Dr Maybee’s underwater lab will be an entire game in itself (as opposed to a single online level).
* Was the gameplay developed to be ‘child friendly’? What do your children think about the game?
The target audience was mainly for old and new fans of Scarygirl (diverse age range). It was not meant to be a hardcore gamers game but a gentle immersion into Scarygirl’s universe and back-story. My 9-year-old son really enjoys the game.
Tell us about you… and where next
*Would you consider yourself to be a gaming fan? Were there any other games that inspired the making of Scarygirl the game?
I am a fan of games. I spent a lot of time playing Nintendo DS (Mario Bros mainly) and also have been dabbling with Fallout 3 and my recent purchase, Little Big Planet. I used to randomly play Warcraft (have a Level 36 Elf Druid gathering dust).
* If you could give artists interested in exploring gaming one piece of advise what would it be?
Make sure you understand how large the project is going to be and how visually intensive. If the game is big and the timeframe tight, definitely get an assistant to help with backgrounds/layout etc (something I should have done).
Scarygirl game, Nathan Jurevicius
* Have you considered exploring the mobile gaming market with the Scarygirl game?
Yes we have had a lot of interest in this and are currently looking at various options and partners.
* As the site has been developed with assistance from Film Victoria’s Digital Media Fund, is the game is a teaser for the upcoming feature film being produced by Passion Pictures Australia? Could you tell us a bit more about the film? What stage are you at in the development?
First and foremost the game was a way to bring back to life the old Scarygirl site and show old and new fans the progression of the story. In conjunction to this we wanted to also build up the excitement to the upcoming graphic novel (release date: October 2009), new toys and of course the feature film. We are currently in active visual/script development on the feature.
* Do you see the game as being as much of a work of art as your comics or collectible figures? Or does the involvement of the team make it feel like a different kind of work?
I would definitely put it in a similar category – in some ways I see the game as involving the audience in a richer, more satisfying way than my toys or fine art.
Scarygirl gaming site, Nathan Jurevicius
Additional credits:
Passion Pictures Australia’s producer, Sophie Byrne commissioned Melbourne based game designers and developers, Tarwin Stroh-Spijer and Tony Polinelli from Touch My Pixel to design and programme the games and Suren Perera from Renmotion as the Flash game animator.
Tarwin Stroh-Spijer and Tony Polinelli say, “the tool we use, the Adobe Flash platform has reached a certain peak of technology, which allows both the use of complex graphics and animation, but this has not been pushed as far as it can as yet. Having this funding has given us the unique opportunity to push it to its limits.” All animation was produced in Flash and programming was done in Flash AS3, predominantly using the open source programme called Flash Develop.
The introductory trailer for the game site was directed and animated by Chris Hauge at Halo Pictures from a script written by Simon Racioppa and Richard Elliot (Reptile Films). The trailer was produced using Flash and Maya, and was composited in Shake. Chris Hauge also supervised all the production of key Scarygirl character animation cycles for the game.
All music for the trailer and in-game music & SFX was produced by Luke Jurevicius at Vishus Productions with SFX for the trailer produced by Mike Darren at Digital Artisan.
clairewelsby
Ab
I heard this game has a wonderful story line but I never tied it out myself. I can resist to try out soon though.
r4 games said this on May 17, 2009 at 12:04 pm