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- This little game has the biggest concepts that I've ever had to tackle. The goal was to create an art piece that utilized the funtionality of Intel's RealSense camera. My role in all this magic and witchcraft was Art Director. Here, is the art of that game. I hope you'll
enjoy it. :)
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stage 1
Stage3
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colossalWorm
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- The premise was to have an alien race extract memories from a dead astronaut in space.
- This phase is to seek financial support. The intention of the art is to inform the financier of what the game will aspire to be. It's in hopes that the images will be "shiny" enough to inspire the companies to want to fund it. Below, is some of the art used for that pitch.
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- Now that the game has been green lit and funded, it's time to break down what the actual game is made up of. Game flow is what it sounds like. How the user will traverse through the game. In this case, it is as follows.
- The menu select in this game is also a crucial part of the narrative happening. Although, the player can choose his destination while also checking his accomplishments, the Nucleus Hub is actually an alien race. When the game starts, this "space ship" finds the dead astronaut. Curious as it was, the space ship, which is actually a living organism, wants to dissect what it can from this astronaut and see what's under the hood. Or in this case, left in his frozen brain.
- Below are storyboards illustrating the event of the aliens retrieving the astronaut and then jumping into a level. (the tiny grayish dot is the astronaut - the ship is very large)
click for more detail
- Initially, the alien race was supposed to evolve once the player had completed certain stages/memories. It was going to learn. Upon this new knowledge, naturally, the aliens were going to reconstruct itself. I chose to begin with a more elemental shell and then slowly evolve to something with a more "self aware" feeling. This would in hopes, give the player a feeling of progress.
- As a basis, I selected the life cycle of a butterfly to attach the design mechanism for this evolutionary state. It was much easier to explain to everyone why the hell this rock was transforming in to a white, skeleton, flying thingy.
- In one word - elemental. To give the player a feeling that this object is nothing but a rock. Dumb as one too perhaps. Rocks are sheltered by their tough exterior. Otherwise, to give a feeling that it will not change without extreme difficulty. Also, as a rock, it has no face and nothing human to attach to. The furthest away from something living I could thing of. (without going supernatural)
layout
Side_view_nucleus_hub
- Ah, now we're at the phase of creation. A very mysterious stage. With a butterfly, I suppose this would be the most magical of phases. It's where the caterpiller forms a Chrysalis around itself. Then, using it's own body as fuel, starts the transformation... If we would have gone in to developing this concept, it would have been the most imaginative of the three stages. Although, because of time and man power, it had to be cut. But, I still managed to kick out the beginning of this phase.
- It uses these little disc dohickies to pull in nearby asteroids and then welds them together forming it's cocoon.
sign
FinalFormofStage1
main_track_2
- Through all that learning of what it means to be a human, the aliens become "self aware". Like in Terminator, this is when the robot begins to create itself. Out comes a creature that can move and articulate. Before the structure came from it's outer shell. Now, the structure comes from within - skeletal. Also, the colors have changed from black to white. Giving a higher contrast always makes for a better reveal!
stage3_design
Stage3
stage3_closeUp
- The menu select in this game is also a crucial part of the narrative happening. Although, the player can choose his destination while also checking his accomplishments, the Nucleus Hub is actually an alien race. When the game starts, this "space ship" finds the dead astronaut. Curious as it was, the space ship, which is actually a living organism, wants to dissect what it can from this astronaut and see what's under the hood. Or in this case, left in his frozen brain.
- These were some Main Stage level selects. Each one was going to represent a different stage in the astronaut's life. In the end, due to time, we chose the glowing orb. Primarily, due to prodution time and effectiveness of the object. (not recognizable as an icon)
- These stages are to resemble life, growth and death of the astronaut represented in an abstract manner. In the game, it's what makes up the bulk of the gaming content. A place where the player must gather enough molecules to open portals to the astronaut's memories.
- Since we are exploring the mind of someone who is dead, we are are going to be reconstructing it. Starting from the beginning entirely.
 portal_selection_1stage sselections |  portal3_2 |  portal3_1 |
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 portal3_3 |  portal_2_profile_db1 |  portal_2_profile_db2 |
 portal_2_profile_db3b |  portal1 |  portal |
- "From the Ether". The theme that I wanted to use to illustrate that idea was threads. Threads that are being woven together to create the fabric of which everything is built upon. Within the ether, towards the end of the game, emerges the beginning of unity - Gravity. Which in this case, is something that marks the first step in to the creation of the mind.
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- Life finally has a ground to stand on from the fabric that was woven in the previous stage. So in all that chaos, I've chosen to show life as it is in a dark, sci fi, wild west. Where all possibilities and avenues are open.
"A beginning of "Eden"
With Eden comes complex life. And everything in this game has a progression. So in the last stage, the living creatures were very large and ominous. This stage, their are much smaller, but loaded with complexity. Still though, lacking an awareness of each other.
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- Life has now come to the end of it's cycle. This stage explore's the idea that life comes at a cost. To bring balance to this universe and the infinite others, everything must go back to where it spawned from in the first stage. To convey this idea, I've created a Source where everything is desperately trying to escape through before all of the known universe is destroyed back to nothing.
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- Through the Main Stages, you can travel to the astronaut's memories. These levels are designed to be more of a background to the path of the player. Almost like a dream, reality has been shifted to a much more abstract world. One to express the feeling of that memory, rather than to relive it.
- This was my second time around art directing a game. I guess this design doc is more for me. So that I may reference it from time to time and see where the hell my mind was at then. As always, I wish I could have done more. Never enough time or budget, but at least I can I say I did it. It was hard, really hard. I hope I was paying attention to what my bosses were doing, so that one day I might be as good as they are at their job.
- I could go on and on, which I have already - haha, but if anyone cares to read this far... After each project I work on, I get laid off. It's the nature of the industry. But what it really does, is give me time to reflect on what the hell happened in that blur of time. With this go around, I think it's time to start working on projects that I find interest in. Not just for the love of creation, but because I love the world that I'll be working on. - World Building
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wedding1
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