Bodi World

“Play as this dumb dog, Bodi, and sniff all the interesting spots in the park on his daily walk. Pee and poop all over the place and bark at large dogs. Go home when you’re done and never stop being annoying. It is literally Bodi’s World.”

Team

  1. Peter O’Neal
  2. Michelle Ramirez

What I did

  1. Art Direction
  2. Game Design
  3. Illustration
  4. Voice acting

Duration

1 month

Tools

  1. Illustrator
  2. Photoshop
  3. Visual Studio 2019

Behind Bodi World

A short, indie game made in 4 weeks by Peter O’Neal (programming, music, sound) and Michelle Ramirez (art, concept, several character voices). As the first game we’ve ever created, we tested game possibilities with a tight deadline of four weeks. We had a big idea and no real understanding of capabilities. Before starting we started, we weren’t sure if we could make an object move across the screen, make a sound happen on cue, or scroll across a large playing field. We learned a lot in four weeks and successfully accomplished those goals and more!

Coded using C++ in Visual Studio 2019 with the SFML graphics and audio library. Music created using MixCraft 8 and original sounds recorded with an ancient Blue Snowball mic and edited using Audacity.

Deep Dive

Ideation

One evening while playing Gimby, I was inspired to use my illustrative skillset to make a small-scale game of a similar nature. I loved the DIY & silly attitude of the game, and I knew I could create something similar.

Bodi

Every evening, we walk our 11-year-old Corgi, Bodi around the park. It is hell. What would take a normal dog 10 minutes to complete the loop, can easily take Bodi 45 minutes. He walks slowly, takes hundreds of breaks, sniffs every bush, pees while walking, barks at big dogs, walks up to strangers to get a pet. I wanted to bring this joy to others by creating a game where the player gets to be Bodi.

Visual Aesthetic

I have a lot of illustration experience with watercolor and wax crayons, and I wanted to bring those soft, sweet textures to this game. Below are the first sketches of the game starting with basic ideation building up to a color scheme.

  • Initial rough sketches of Bodi World and how the dog will move.
  • Sketches to figure out the spatial dimensions of the course.
  • Final sketches of the course with key color scheme in place.

Illustration

Once the color scheme and general theme of the game were finalized, I set to work illustrating every visual aspect of the game. Originally, I believed this would be a quick process, but I learned that it takes a lot of time. Nearly four weeks were spent illustrating each character, prop, and animal for the game. We decided mid-project to give every character a small-animation element, meaning, a need to create two or three versions of one character. Below are the final illustrations used in the game but in their original sketchbook pages.

Photoshop

After scanning the images, I used Photoshop to crop and edit the images to create the animation feel. For example, the black dog’s tail wagging, the statue winking, the old woman walking.

With the Photoshop mini-animation completed, I carefully organized the sprites to one PNG document to be officially uploaded to the game.

Final Product

The game is currently available for download on Itch.io for Windows. Unzip the files and click on the exe file to start. As of today, Bodi World has 79 downloads.

Two days after the release of the game, Terrorose, an independent game reviewer, recorded a playthrough and their reaction. We did not sponsor this review, however, we are lucky for such a positive, and nice review! Plus, it’s a great way to see what Bodi World is all about if you’re unable to download the game.

Terrorrose said Bodi World is, “A fun game to play. Makes me laughs a lot. Great the way it is.”