I have created mood boards for my idea just to give a brief example of what I would like to accomplish. I have made five moodboards; visuals, exterior, armour, long bow (yumi) and nodachi (great sword).

Visuals:

     The visual style for the game is based on ukiyo-e (Japanese art style that was popular in 17^th- 20^th century) which made by using watercolours and heavy inking. Games like Okami made by Capcom and Clover Studio were heavily influenced by this form of art and would like to have something related to this in terms of environment.

  Journey is a game that created by Thatgamecompany that tells its narrative through visuals and player who plays it. The games main character is a mysterious wanderer in the desert finding its way to the tallest mountain is which is shown at the beginning of the game. This shows both player and avatar their motive. In the level for the Journeyman Project I wanted the player character to look upon the enemy castle to show her motive and her anger.

  Shenmue is a game on the dreamcast developed by Sega AM2. The games creator Yu Suzuki wanted to create a realistic game by simulating real time aspects. Also Shenmue was of first games that had fully voiced non-playable characters; most of them with a background story which made the characters in Shenmue relatable and human. I would love to have fully voiced actors from the main characters to common enemies.

Armour:

 The game is set in the 11^th century Japan so the popular armour was the O-yoroi which appeared in the 10^th century Japan and was designed for mounted archery, cavalrymen and high ranking warriors. The main character is meant to be one of the best warriors in the Minamoto clan which make her sand out of the rest of the characters, minus the bosses.

    The O-yoroi contains six components; the kabuto (helmet), do (chest armour), kore (armoured sleeves), hai-date (thigh armour), sune-ate (shin armour) and the mengu (facial armour); all the components excluding the mengu will possibly be used for the main character. The reason for exclusion of the mengu because I wanted to show the face of the main characters which the player can see through the character’s emotion.

 The kabuto is constructed with iron plates that are arranged vertically and the radiate from the opening in the top called the tehen or hachiman-za (hole at the top). The do is one of the major components of the Japanese armour which is made out of iron with lacuquer (urushi) used to weather proof and is used by mounted samurai. The kote is made out of silk and is padded and laced. Gauntlets or covers of metal plates for the back of the hand are attached to the kote. The hai-date is a type of cloth apron with various small metal plates attached to the clothing back; however it is not always worn as many samurai preferred to keep greater mobility and it gives no protection against attacks from behind. This may be excluded from the main character but will be used for some enemies and for the boss in the level.

More mood boards and descriptions will be coming soon.