AC: New Murder

AC: New Murder is an Ace-Attorney-like murder mystery game that pairs with Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH) for exploration and storytelling.

AC: New Murder is a video game I created that takes part on a website and part on my dream island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. You can learn more about the game in the "NEW MURDER" tab.

One of the two parts of the game is a visual novel. I created all visual assets for the visual novel side. That includes redesigning the characters from Animal Crossing: New Horizons and creating 10-30 expressions for each of the 11 characters.

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I went through tons of quick sketches to feel out the design I was looking for. Some characters took more tries than others.

For Elvis, I was going for a grumpy retired king who actually is just shy and loves to talk about his daughter.

I used the emotes in Animal Crossing: New Horizons as inspiration. Each character has its own set of emotes. All characters have a "Thought" drawing, but not everyone cries.

Lucky’s memories are translated into crude storyboards. They are meant to look like Lucky drew them himself. This choice was actually a decision to save time once I realized storyboarding five sequences for an already ambitious project was too ambitious. The change has brought charm and expanded on Lucky’s innocent personality.

The original plan was to illustrate the 14 backgrounds in the game, but it was too time-consuming for an already long-going project. The temp backgrounds, pictures taken in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, became official backgrounds after some tweaks. Players have commented that in-game backgrounds tie the two halves together. So it worked out for the best.