Visual Studio Subscription Benefits Video
Visual Design - Nina Stackhouse
Asset Creation - Nina Stackhouse
Storyboard design - Mike McCoy
Animation - Mike McCoy
Sound - Nathan Smith
The Visual Studio Subscription team at Microsoft approached us at Red Door Collaborative to help create a marketing video aimed to empower developers to overcome different industry challenges and unlock what they need on their developer journey through the tools and benefits included in their Visual Studio subscription.
We came up with the exciting concept of introducing the viewer to the Visual Studio world in an RPG style adventure game where the player character gathers inventory, fends off viruses, and unlocks different achievements using their dev tool kit.
I was thrilled to play the role of creating all the character designs, environments, and assets seen throughout the video.
Early Sketches & Exploration
From the beginning, we knew we would have to create a character for this video which came with a handful of challenges. The character needed to represent the concept of a video game hero while also relating to developers. In addition, Microsoft keeps characters to a minimum. My idea to anthropomorphize a mouse cursor had the perfect balance of simplicity and personality while representing a developer going through their own journey.
Final Character & Asset Designs
We decided to keep the characters simple with no faces as characters are rarely used in Microsoft design. There were various cursor characters throughout the video with different video game “skins” as well as a need for bug virus enemies.
Final Style Frames
While staying with in the parameters of the Visual Studio subscription color palette, I was able to create a wide range of environments, asset and character interactions, and video game UI moments while following Mike’s storyboards.
