Blood and guts and fruit juice

Well this is my first research blog post for Project Blender. After the first brainstorming session we each went away with a topic to research to do with the vision of the game. 'Fruit gore' became a buzz phrase that all the members of the team should be keeping in mind. The topic I'll be blogging about tonight is 'gore in film' and specifically blood (in relation to fruit juice). The first thing I did when I got home after receiving my assignment was to slam my Machine Girl blue-ray disk into my PS3 and observe the ridiculously over the top gore.

More after the jump.

The low budget special effects, and high pressure blood spray, were definitely along the right track. Kill Bill also has a similar over the top (albeit not quite as over the top) spray blood effect.

Another Japanese film, Zatoichi (a very large amount of my source material happens to be Japanese), has a slightly more stylish approach to blood. It looks a lot more fluid (almost like fruit juice maybe?). The director wanted the blood to "look like flowers blossoming across the screen" (It's a nice image but I don't really see it myself...)

As it's quite likely that the game will be in a cartoony style I decided to look to cartoons for gore. One cartoon that particularly stood out was Happy Tree Friends; a beautifully crafted blend of cute and brutal. The episode below is particularly relevant because of its incorporation of fruit juice.



Possibly the most relevant thing I've found is this Norwegian smoothie advert, which has fruit exploding into a bloody fruity mess. The fruit on the screen would possibly be a nice addition to the game.



Finally an example of bloody gore in a video game is MadWorld which emphasises the blood even more by having the red contrast with the monotone graphics. MadWorld also uses the blood splat on the screen effect.



EDIT: Sean has just reminded me of probably the most fun I've had with blood in a video game. Fairy Tale Fights is another example of cartoon gore and it has blood you can slide around in... lovely...



EDIT 2: Am I ever going to finish this post? Anyway, another very relevant game, which doesn't so much use gore, but does have fruit slicing and lots of juice is Fruit Ninja. Enjoy.