Game Design
Video games offer all the ingredients for top-tier engagement - visual stimulation, immersive sound, compelling story, and interactivity! What we have here are some early experiments and Game Jam projects to gain a better understanding of the game development process, including art, sound, storytelling, development, publication, and project management.
Above: Title screen lettering and animation
‘The Crucible’
The Crucible is a top down adventure game set in a dark fantasy world, incorporating melee combat and a revolving 'mystery potion' mechanic that imbues the player with special abilities... at a price. You will navigate dungeons, battle enemies, and encounter traps while also sampling potions that will help or hinder you on your journey. The stakes rise as the story unfolds, driving you closer to the answers you seek, but will the truth set you free?
Above: The final boss sprite which I designed and animated.
Teamwork makes the dream work
As this was my second video game jam, I wanted the experience of assembling, collaborating, and succeeding with a team. I was fortunate to find a fellow artist who enjoyed creating a multitude of level prop art, cut scene stills, and character designs for dialogue. Our art team also led the charge on drafting the script and organizing the teams efforts via Trello and Discord.
Our team also included an aspiring Godot game engine developer, a sound/music designer, and someone without any prior, specialized experience, but with a keen interest in game development, who was mentored by the teams developer throughout the project.
Protoyping in Figma
Working under a tight timeline magnifies the importance of efficiency, and our team used Figma to flowchart the games progression, incorporate scripted elements, and illustrate the placement of artwork and UI elements, creating a clear vision for everyone to follow.
A race against the clock…
The night before the game jam deadline, there was still plenty of work to do. Our heroic dev team worked through the night and fought through a critical system crash to make the game functional, submitting it with only 4 minutes to spare!
The game, though janky at times, was completed successfully. The Crucible is free to play on itch.io.
‘The Spreadening’
The Spreadening is a visual novel game set in a Cthulu mythos inspired world. The fate of all humanity and your sanity depends on defeating a lesser cosmic entity in a winner-take-all game of Klaatu Barada Nikto, or as we humans say, Rock, Paper, Scissors, to stop the spread of a ancient evil. This was my first foray into game development, and was submitted as part of the Pirate Software Game Jam.
How to make your first video game
I quickly discovered that the learning curve for most video game engines would be too steep for a noobie in a time crunch, but I eventually stumbled upon Ren’Py - a visual novel-focused game engine that was a perfect fit for the hand drawn art style I envisioned. To elevate the visual novel into a proper (simple) game, I learned a pinch of the Python programming language to build a basic rock-paper-scissors mechanic, and voila!
Above: A few of the hand drawn environments that made the cut. Many sketches will forever lie on the cutting room floor due to time.
Works in progress…
I’m currently working on a few indie game projects that are in the early stages of development. Below are examples of concept sketches, title graphics, and character sprites that I’ve created.
