|2020| Epicinium
Project Summary
“Can you destroy your enemies before nothing but dirt and ash remains of your world? Epicinium is a simultaneous turn strategy game in which nature is a finite resource.”
Epicinium is a free multiplayer strategy game I worked on at A Bunch of Hacks. I joined the team when the base game was pretty much done, but in need of polishing. The game is currently available on Steam for free on Windows, Mac and Linux!
Main Role
Team Composition
The team had 4 Members at its peak:
- 2 Programmers
- 1 2D Artist
- 1 Audio Design and Programming Intern
My Contributions
I worked on illustrations, pixel art and animations, UX and UI. I managed the social media, captured game footage, made promotional materials and trailers. Even leitmotifs was something I’ve worked on, even though audio production is not my forte. Furthermore, I set up a simplistic Scrum structure during my first week.
Lastly, at the digital Tokyo Game Show 2020, I represented the company when meeting potential partners, such as outsourcing studios and publishers.
Process Runthrough
When starting at the company, the founders weren’t sure what exact tasks to assign me. Therefore, I examined the game and company, making a task list based on my analysis. Firstly, I restructured the work structure based on Scrum methodology to include weekly standups/planning. Weekly meetings were chosen due to the small team size and the workload outside work for the game itself.
Unfortunately, Epicinium’s release date was often delayed, resulting in a 5 month delay for the release. However, this worked out well for us, as we could present the game at the digital Tokyo Game Show 2020. As a result, we got over 20.000 views on our Steam page before release. We also had built up an active social media follower base by then consistently posting good, informative content.
For graphics, what could be done was limited as it was the programmers’ own engine, so I worked within certain constraints. I worked in Aesprite, redesigning environmental assets, dedicating a lot of time to improving the visual clarity for structures. After approval these were reanimated as well. Eventually, one of the programmers made a working map and colour editor that enabled me to create colour palettes. I made two variations of the regular colour palette and a colour-blind palette. Afterwards, I redesigned the UX/UI, as the information on the interface was hard to comprehend. Finally, following most of the in-game graphic related work, I made the Title Screen illustration after having pitched multiple options and iterations for it.
Screenshots
|2018| Photopsia: The Girl That Saw Stars
Project Summary
“For some disaster is not a misfortune, but a meticulously planned path. As the young Iris loses grip of reality, she reaches a crossroads that can turn her miserable life into something truly exceptional.”
Photopsia is a solo graduation project I made at the HKU University of the Arts in Utrecht. It’s a short horror visual novel based on the phenomenon of photopsia, made in Ren’Py. The game will be remade in Unity.
Main Role
Team Composition
The team had 1 Person, this was a solo project.
* Later down the line, the teacher overseeing this project suggested me to request help from a music student. This ended up being Tyas van den Bergh, who made all the audio in the game, both SFX and BGM, you can find him over at his website; Sound Potion!
My Contributions
Everything, visual development, animation, writing, coding, character design, everything aside from creating audio. Although I did design some original leitmotifs first.
Process Runthrough
The process of creating what Photopsia was supposed to be was interesting, so I will focus on that.
Initially, I had pitched making a creepy 2D Fighting Game Character with all their lore integrated in many extreme animations. This eventually changed, as when exploring and designing characters, the story I had designed for Iris really had me hooked. When shifting my focus to her, I realized that if I stuck to the fighting game idea, it would completely ruin the important subtle elements within her story.
Thus, I shifted to the idea of creating a 2D animation and made a list of events to highlight in it and sketches out a storyboard on paper before digitalizing a part of it. But as I did, I realized that not even this would properly tell the story to the audience in the way I wanted to. I wanted to deliver interactive way where the player gets to experience Iris’s life. I wanted them to see her thoughts while catching onto the subtle details and hints within the story.
At first I tried out RPGMaker, this engine ended up having too many limitations for the kind of graphics I wanted. Moreover, it was too difficult to properly add the visual novel elements I wanted to make.
So, I decided to make the game into a visual novel. Initially, I tried using TyranoBuilder as it seemed like an easy engine to work with. Unfortunately, there were certain constraints I found too limiting.
Finally, I considered the Ren’Py engine. Although I had been avoiding the engine because of the coding aspect, it turned out to be exactly what I needed. Because unexpectedly, the coding was easy and I could make things look the way I wanted them to look.
Screenshots
|2017| Eemland Educative Escape Room
Project Summary
“Escape with your class within 60 minutes! Play an interactive escape room designed to teach your class 21st Century Skills.”
A group project at the HKU University of the Arts Utrecht for the Eemland Library in Amersfoort. For this project, the assignment was to create an educative Escape Room that could be played by groups of 30 at most. As if that wasn’t challenging enough, we had to design the space so the narratives could be easily and quickly changed!
Main Role
2D Game Artist | Focus on Concept Art and Character Design
Some relevant work can be found over at my Gallery.
Team Composition
The team had 4 Members:
- 2 Interaction Designers
- 1 2D Artist
- 1 3D Artist
I was responsible for anything 2D that was stylized. One of the Interaction Designers was better at realistic photobashing, so that wasn’t part of my obligations. Because the team was small and the Escape Room we worked on was meant to be built in real life, we worked on many things unrelated to our main role. I’ve worked on;
My Contributions
- Target Audience Research
- Puzzle Research
- Puzzle Design
- Narrative Design
- Animation
- Client Communication
Process Runthrough
Because this project was a bit different, I’ll focus on our overall process. After we got briefed on the goal of the project, we started with audience and puzzle research. Our task was to focus on 21st Century Skills, so we settled on Problem Solving, Cooperation and Critical Thinking. Eventually, all our puzzles were either designed based on school subjects or around the use of apps and computers. This included, for example, Shazam and a puzzle integrating SSTV technology.
Once we had our puzzles, we tested them out at a local middle school for reactions, engagement and difficulty level. Because we had tested a lot with fellow classmates, the results ended up being very positive.
When it came to narrative design, we decided to keep the story for the younger group of kids simple, making it about finding a lost cat. For the older group, we really focused on critical thinking and designed a more complex narrative. We wrote a mystery in which there were many different characters with an incentive to kidnap the victim in our story. As we presented our propositions and progress to the client each month, we were very adaptive to his direction. Although there were few things that had to be changed, occasionally he would make decisions about scope.
Extra Project Work
As the video trailer shows a lot better how the game is actually played, I decided to add other images. Thus, I added some screenshots of the animation and unused biology/chemistry puzzle I made. For more concept art images, visit my gallery page for this project.
|2016| Attuned: A Skyterra Adventure
Project Summary
“In a world inhabited by plants merged with the mechanical, find a way to save your environment through song and companionship!”
A group project for the HKU University of the Arts Utrecht’s Innovatiestudio. We made a 3D single-player platformer set in one of their IPs, a world which was inhabited by plant/robot symbiotes.
Main Role
2D Game Artist – Focus on Creature Concept Art
I made a lot of creature designs for this game, which you can find over at my Gallery. You can also find the final build on Google Drive, but you need an Xbox 360 controller to play it.
Team Composition
The team had 8 Members:
- 3 Concept Artists
- 1 2D/3D Art Generalist
- 2 3D Artists
- 1 Developer/Designer
- 1 Audio Designer
My Contributions
During this project I got to fully focus on Character Concept Art, more specifically Creature Design. I mainly worked on designing our hero character and his little friend. Although I contributed to the story and visual direction decisions, I didn’t deviate from my main role all that much.
Because this world setting had very untraditional creatures living in it, I focused on function rather than shapes while trying to avoid anthropomorphism as much as possible. Initially, this led to the very first concepts feeling more like plants overtaking/inhibiting existing devices or vice versa, they weren’t symbiotes. Finding a balance was hard, especially as for Creature Design, I like establishing rules for a creature’s living needs and internal anatomy before getting to work.
Eventually due to my overthinking, my concepts were often overly complicated. Therefore, the chosen Art Lead, Emiel Boven, suggested me to work with monochrome colour thumbnails, and to exclusively focus on shapes. This helped me a lot when exploring a greater variety of character designs, for both our hero and his buddy.
In the end, the team decided to return to one of my earlier designs based on a mix of a pitcher plant and a physalis fruit, which I made some final iterations for before the cutest ones was chosen to be the Buddy.
Screenshots
