The cover art for the game on itch.io.
Screenshot of the tree-growing process during the day cycle.
As the player spends more time focusing, the tree gets larger and more lush.
Screenshot of the night cycle, when the spirits come out to play.
Spirits will talk with the player, and have their own personalities.
Initial team brainstorming document for the game jam.
Concept sketching for several unused ideas.
Concept sketching for the idea that became the final - Bonsaidle, a bonsai and spirit themed focus timer.
Concept painting for the gameplay space, including a shoji screen background, and a bonsai tree in a pot, with visiting spirits.
Concept Iteration for spirit designs.
Concept for the spirit generation mechanism. Different body parts would turn on or off to create different combinations and different spirits.
A sample of spirits, showing their walking and idle animations.
Sprite sheet for the bonsai leaves, in a painterly style.
Background illustration, used together with a Unity-rendered sky.
https://leftout.itch.io/bonsaidle
Bonsaidle is a game I created on the team of Left Out Games for Summer Slow Jams 2023, for June. The theme was "Idle Games," with a creative theme of "mutation." The time span for this game jam was 2 weeks.
We explored a ton of ideas initially, and I created visual concept explorations for a few. We settled on Bonsaidle, a focus timer (an application that times periods of focusing and taking breaks to help structure work time) in which you grow your own bonsai tree that summons spirits. The tree would grow during a 25 minute day cycle of working, during which, no spirits would be present. Then, there would be a 5 minute night cycle, where the player can prune the tree to their liking and speak with the spirits they've summoned.
Originally, a randomizer was planned that would generate spirits from one master set of sprites. All spirits would have the same animation, but would appear very different due to the different combinations of traits. While this system was not able to implemented in time in Unity, I created all assets with this in mind, and created "randomized" characters manually through switching layers on and off in After Effects.
Along with creating concept art, I also created all 2D sprites for the spirits, the tree leaves, and a background for the play space.
