Project Details

When I was presented with the opportunity to work on what has to be my all time favourite shootem-up, I almost fell over and fainted! To be given the chance to work on a title so epic, so loved and so much a part of modern day gaming was nothing short of an honour! The brief was surprisingly simple, create an updated fresh, sexy look for the menu system of this classic shooter!

After I’d picked myself up off the floor and pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, I sat back and immediately realised that it was time to pull out one of the many versions of R-Type I had in my extensive collection, as it was time to research! Ok, that’s tosh, it was a bloody good excuse to play one of my favourite games and call it work. About a day or so later I realised that my research was complete 🙂 This was fairly daunting, I was about to step into the modern history of shootem-ups finest heritage title, I had to ensure I created something that honoured the series and didn’t insult it. After quite a lot of experimenting, I decided to vectorise the background tile from level 1 (the most memorable background element I think) and use this as the canvas for the menu screen. With this polished up and complete it was time to bring a modern flare to that blisteringly awesome logo…ok, so I wasn’t going to change that, that would have been sacrilege, so I opted to simply tone it in a neon blue. I just wanted to create a look for this that I felt would have been likely if today’s processing power was available during the 80’s, I wanted it to feel modern, but still quite classic. Due to time and budget I was only let loose on a few elements (those you see below), and I would have loved to indulge this puppy with a week of my time. But I’m still ecstatic at being part of this games history. Even in this small role. Thanks DotEmu for the opportunity!