Week 4: Guns!

Let's not shoot around the bush, shall we?

That's right, it's the gun week.

You don't have to live in a red state to think guns are awesome. If there's one thing humanity excels at it's developing unique and increasingly creative methods for killing eachother. Few methods are more bad-ass than the gun. Unless I suppose it's a bigger gun.

He's ready for violence.

The thing that makes guns bad ass to me is the fact that there's no messing around. Generally speaking a gun wielding protagonist hasn't spent a decade learning the "art" of the gun. A gun is a tool that propels a ball of lead into your living target; it's the most primitive, direct, and in most cases expeditious way to end lives en-masse.

Guns. Lots of guns.

So, when I think about guns as props I think that those ideas need to be reflected in the design. Of course I like to think of it from a game-play standpoint because I'm a game nerd, so when I think about a weapon I think of how I'd feel using it in a game and how it would make me feel. The exciting thing about designing your own unique guns is that you can be as over the top as you want. Look at these concepts from Bayonetta:

Holy gun design, Batman!

The protagonist of Bayonetta looks like this:

Bow chicka wow wow

Bayonetta is a strong, over the top female protagonist and you can SEE that in these guns. Despite looking girly, these guns also look awesome. They look like the sort of gun you'd be dispensing some righteous justice from. Stylishly.

On the flipside if your protagonist is this guy:

*manly grunt*

You'd feel really silly using the pink guns. I mean unless it was a comedy. Actually, that is sort of hilarious visual. I wonder if someone could make a mod for that. Anyway, this is the main character in Gears of War. He kills aliens, pounds his chest, hangs with his marine bros and probably drinks something god-awful like MGD.

The iconic Gears "Lancer" looks like this:

Chainsaw bitches!

Jigga-wha~t?! That's right, it's a chainsaw gun. That is motherf*cking chainsaw on a motherf*cking assault rifle. Would it work in real life? I can't imagine your foe would be patient enough to let you saw his limb off. And why would you when you could just... shoot him? But that isn't the point. Because when your player character is using this weapon and chainsawing patient aliens in half YOU FEEL LIKE A GOD. A god of wretched death and dismemberment.

I guess my point to all of this is think about who is using the gun and what it's purpose is. Think about how you define a gun. Then put those ideas into your final design.

Anyway, that is my gun spiel. I don't know what my plan is for this yet, but I hope it's fun!