Creating graphics for a Silverlight game
The game chrome
I decided on a basic gradient background for simplicity sake. I chose a cold kind of icey blue which I felt would allow the characters to stand out sufficiently. I laid all out to get a sense of the size of the game area for the characters and to see how they would all work together. I was concerned that some styles for some characters might jar against others so it was important to see all displayed together.
The screen needed to accommodate the score and level display, power-ups and the timing device - the melting ice. I used a glassy effect to contain the melting ice and the power-ups, making use of Expression's gradient and opacity settings. One criticism so far has been that the melting ice is too subtle and needs to stand out more which I'll look at in a later version.
For the final version, I drew my own characters for the level and score display. The score numbers were drawn within a fixed with rectangle to eradicate the need to letter-space them when they were placed adjacently.
