Party in My Dorm Style Overhaul
When I joined Party in my Dorm (PIMD), I inherited an art style that had become inconsistent during its decade-long run - wavering between realism and stylization due to evolving outsourcing decisions since its 2010 launch. Despite this visual inconsistency, the game had grown into a revenue powerhouse generating millions annually.
My challenge was to modernize and unify the game's visual identity while respecting what made it successful with its dedicated player base. I led a complete art overhaul that maintained the game's core appeal while delivering a fresh, cohesive style.
Avatar Redesign
PimD is a fashion game. So I wanted this new approach to capture the charm of its last look while retaining the kind of detail important to fashion.
I created a series of style explorations. And surveyed a variety of people that were in the target demographic of the game, namely, 18-25 year old women. I found that many of them preferred a more realistic style, and so I continued in that direction.
I had settled on a style that heavily emphasized facial expressions and line-art. PimD players used their avatars to express their identity and fantasies. I wanted these to be expressive, appealing, and fun.
I decided to move away from a painted style to a more cel-shaded approach. This streamlined the colouring process and helped make everything look more consistent.
As PimD is a mobile game, I wanted to simplify the shapes into broad silhouettes. This helped kept details from getting lost on phone screens.
Fun with a splash of manga, this new look gave plenty of attention to the detail, hair, and makeup.
Item Redesign
Next up: the items. The old style of items was quite outdated. A cross between cartoonish in content but with realistic rendering.
They got similar treatment to the avatars: simplified cel shading and stronger linework.