Five Teams in Rough Sketch Form, Perhaps for a Brawler Game

My notes and sketches have a variety of game ideas appearing here and there. Also I will take a concept and purposefully develop it with a creative challenge because the gentle timing pressure and sketch level of effort are just enough of a spark to encourage me to keep going with an idea. That's how I explored the characters and world of my Ghost Brawlers concept a few years back, new ideas for Guitar Fretter, Gameshow Escape, and Two Pizza Team.

This gallery of sketches is me exploring the idea of teams who are out to accomplish something together in the context of a brawling story and game. It's brainstorming in the form of sketching. These concepts I took one step further to clarify the ideas beyond a rough thumbnail sketch. They're rough yet have a couple drafts to get to this point, lots more ways to get specific with style, story, reasons they're together. Ways they're united in aesthetic and divided.

What's funny to me is a brawler game is something I both want to do and am conflicted on the premises of the brawler games I enjoy. I'm wondering about and exploring ideas to make the brawling somehow inclusive and service minded if that makes any sense. Games like Streets of Rage and Golden Axe are a snapshot in time with all kinds of culture context that I wonder if there could be a new kind reason to wander and punch stuff in a game. One of those would be that it takes wandering and punching to find and face a foe who caused great punching related problems.

Fun to consider. Let simmer. Feed that into a game concept eventually.

For now, here's the five team sketches.