9. september 2025 blogg
Game design - blog 1: Designing life‑stages, and art workflow
By Varshani Brabaharan
A spark of Inspiration
In high-latitude seas, a tiny copepod called C. finmarchicus, engages in daily and seasonal excursions with distances (depths) ranging from tens to thousands of meters across the water column. These daily and seasonal vertical migrations are driven by a diversity of environmental factors, such as temperature, light, food and predators and can have significant ecological and economic consequences. The Migratory Crossroads project focuses on improving our understanding of how the migratory behaviour of Calanus finmarchicus will be influenced by the human-mediated climate change in the Norwegian Sea. A part of this project includes developing a digital game about C. finmarchicus vertical migrations. The aim of this is to build awareness among younger audiences about the fascinating migratory behaviour of this copepod and planktonic marine life at large.
The digital game is essentially a simplified life cycle of C. finmarchicus developed into a storyline where players, the main character of the game, the copepod interact with and simulated environmental factors. Based on the gameplay, the interactions between the environmental factors and the copepod is simulated following simple set of biological and ecological rules, such as the impact of food on growth and how predator interaction impacts copepod survival.
The biological process of copepod development takes the centre stage in this game. In reality, Calanus finmarchicusmoults through six nauplius stages (NI-NVI) and five copepoditestages (CI-CV) before reaching adulthood (see the life cycle sketch below). At each moult they grow new limbs and grow in size. Further, a development shape-shift occurs at the newborn (nauplius)-to-juvenile (copepodite) transition (NVI-CI), where the roughly spherical nauplius becomes a more oval shaped copepodite. These developmental transitions are a perfect hook for a progression system in the game. In addition, based on the feeding and energy storage patterns, C. finmarchicus developmental stages are generally categorized into four (4) subgroups. These are, non-feeding stages (Egg, NI and NII), feeding but non-energy storing stages (NIII-CIII), feeding and energy storing stages (CIV, CV) and adults (male and female). Inspired by these patterns, the digital game is developed across four main levels.
Our goal: translate an intricate life‑cycle into readable, charming sprites while staying recognisable to our marine experts.
From sketch to screen: how video game characters come to life
Ever wondered how those cute creatures in your favourite mobile game go from the imagination of an artist or game developer to animated characters that you can interact with? Let me walk you through the fascinating journey of creating a game character, using our tiny sea creature as an example. Meet Pip, who evolves through different life stages in an oceanic adventure
Step 1: The rough draft – sketching the big picture
Just like writing starts with an outline, character design begins with rough sketches. Using a digital drawing tablet and an app like Notability, artists can create simple silhouettes from each stage of the creature’s life cycle. Think of these as digital stick figures, but instead of people, the artist is drawing the basic shapes of our sea creature.
The focus here is not on making things pretty but on getting the proportions right. How big should the head be compared to the body? How many legs or appendages does the animal have at each stage? Last but not least, how can all this be simplified so that it is appealing to the target audience? This process and the rough thumbnails can be compared to the blueprint that an architect draws before building a house.
Video of the DRAWING process: https://www.mynewsdesk.com/no/...
Step 2: Making it clean and organized
Once the basic shapes look right, it is time for the “vector pass.” This is essentially about creating a clean final version of the artwork. This can be done in Adobe Illustrator where the artist can carefully trace over those rough sketches or use shapes to fit different body components.
Video of the TRACING process: https://www.mynewsdesk.com/no/...
This is where organization become crucial. Every part of the creature gets its own digital layer for instance eyes on one layer, mouth on another, appendages on a third etc. (see layers panel below). It is like having transparent sheets stacked on top of each other, where you can edit just the eyes without accidently changing the mouth. This separation simplifies each step.
Step 3: Bringing the animal to life with animation
Now the magic starts, making our static drawing move! The clean artwork can then get imported into Adobe After Effects which can be compared to a digital puppet theatre. Using a technique called “puppet pinning” an artist can add invisible joints to the creature, similar to how a marionette has strings attached to different body parts.
They also add automatic movements using something called “wiggle expressions” which is basically telling the computer to “make the hair or antennae of the animal bounce every few seconds” or “have the legs gently sway back and forth”. These small movements make the character feel alive even when it is just sitting still.
Video of the SEQUENCE process: https://www.mynewsdesk.com/no/...
The final animation gets exported as a series of individual images, like a digital flipbook. This will play in sequence to create smooth motion.
Step 4: Game-ready assembly
Finally, everything gets imported into a game engine like Unity where our character will actually live and interact with players. This is where the creature transforms from an animated movie clip into an interactive game element.
Each life stage becomes what developers call a “prefab” which is a complete package containing not just the artwork and animations, but also invisible elements like:
- Collison detection: So that the creature can bump into things
- Statistics: How fast the creature moves, how much health does it have, etc.
- Behaviour rules: What happens when a player taps it
Video of the UNITY process: https://www.mynewsdesk.com/no/...
The result
This process that started with simple sketches has resulted in a fully interactive character that can swim around your phone screen, respond to your touch, and evolve before your eyes. The entire process typically takes several weeks or months, involving drawing, animating and programming.
Next time you are playing a game and seeing a character move naturally on screen, you will know that there is an intricate pipeline of creativity and technical skill behind every wiggle, bounce, blink, and animation!
3. Coming up next - Pip’s daily excursion
Our little copepod friend, that we in the game have named Pip, has an incredible ability to avoid its predators. This behaviour is known as diel vertical migration (DVM). This DVM is accomplished by hiding in deeper waters during the day and riding the ocean surface layers at night where it, camouflaged by the darkness, can feed.
This is just the beginning of the incredible journey of our tiny copepod. As Pip grows and evolves, new challenges, abilities, and breathtaking underwater wonders await.
Stay tuned for more updates as we delve deeper into the development of this exciting animal and exciting new game!
This game development is part of the Migratory Crossroads project, financed by the Research Council of Norway and led by Kanchana Bandara, Akvaplan-niva.
As we dive deeper, follow our blog series at https://akvaplan.no/en/project/migratory-crossroads.
