Artist Manifesto

      Smile is meant to be a short horror game utilizing the tools and constraints of the bitsy application. The character went through various changes from a perpetually smiling face or one with no eyes. Regardless, the decision was to make the main character seem nice, but slightly unsettling. Similar to the character the other face sprite was meant to have an unsettling presence after a couple of levels. However, their face would be static since it seemed creepier that way. The levels went through a few redesigns until a proper color pallet was chosen. At first the most jarring colors were chosen, but after varying green with red, it just seemed better to go with a standard black and red design with yellow sprites/items. Levels progressed from simplistic to monstrous or difficult depending on the player progression. 

       I meant for the game to have a slight difficulty which is why there is an invisible maze level now. But it served its purpose well in the end. Overall, I wanted to create a slightly creepy horror game on the premise of taking a piece of candy (mainly because it is close to Halloween). And by utilizing the knowledge I accrued over using this system for a while I believe I am on track for making such a creation. Such as abusing the game data files to allow for extra animation frames or creating invisible items for transition room text. This project was rather fun to work on despite not having as many liberties of other engines available. However,  working through these constraints allowed for some very creative innovations, and interesting scenarios.