From my first Pixel Jam in 2015 to the 2024 Vancouver Global Game Jam, I've tried my hand at several genres, styles and stories. To download game demos and more, visit my Global Game Jam profile. (Specific links on each post.)
The player plays as a frog stuck in a time loop thanks to a curse put on it by a witch. The player also has to loop back around parts of the level to complete it fully.
I applied a style that would be loose and quick to produce, given the timeframe. The objects and their placement were determined from our grey box level.
Starting off on the table, in front of a hearth.
You explore the witches home, as an armless frog.
There are a range of interesting insects and tinctures around the witches cabin.
This is the grey box of the level I was working from, as AJ laid out. We accounted for and adjusted based on our playthroughs and what looked better.
Environment items for The Cursed Frog
Props for The Cursed Frog
The frog's walk and jump cycles for a quick animation.
A cozy game about finding your lost ducklings, and helping the community after a storm.
The Quiver Game Incubator is a program that brings teams together to foster game start-ups, offering an opportunity to collaborate; get weekly feedback from testing and mentors; and seek out advice.
This style used graphic shapes, with painted textures to give form and movement. It features a range of colour palettes, from vibrant to neutral with accents, to higher contrast settings.
This style applies bold shapes to create simple, yet characterized sombodies and settings. Some feature line work in balck or colour, while others have simpler shading, if any.
This style, which we ultimately went with, has jagged, simple shapes, with a textured background. To me, they all comingle into a patchwork of pieces because of the shared colours and texture, which is why I called this style "patchwork".
I laid out moodboards to pitch different illustration styles for the game, based on the concept of a lonely duck after a storm. We went with "2 patchwork", which leaned into simple shapes overlaid with textures and patterns, often featured in paper cut illustrations. I applied the simple shapes to the character designs, which were later overlaid with texture I produced with acrylic paint.
A range of duck designs for the main hero character, presented to the team.
The final design of the hero duck was animated at each angle to create a line-boil effect.
These items can be found floating throughout the levels of Ponder.
Working with Aaron, our 3D modeller, I produced textures that he used to wrap the props, to create a cohesion between the 2D and 3D elements of the game. I contributed by writing the world of man-made objects and scenarios found in the game, after the flood.
My question was, who are we supposed to be making laugh? This jam was fun, and there were lots of great projects that got submitted to Pixel Route. For a full look at the submitted games, visit the Vancouver Global Game Jam website!
Lost In The Loo is a procedurally generated microscope simulator, with lots of cute little bacteria.
I took part in:
+ Visual Development, including experimenting with shaders to create unique sprites.
+ Designing class systems for sprites to apply progression and game play through procedural generation
+ Designing class systems for sprites to apply progression and game play through procedural generation
An image I created, which inspired us at the beginning, along with videos of microscopic close ups of bacterial worlds.
exploration
First, I pitched mood boards that had themes of colour and light. We went with "luminance" board 4 of 6. It features primary colours and high contrast. I ideated on game play, offering different ways the inspiration of bacteria and microscopic landscapes could apply to the player. I've included some sketchbook pages from this stage.
assets
The characters in the game were rendered by applying a ramp of colour to grayscale sprites, which were animated by cycling the colours through the sprite. I created classes of characters by testing and implementing different sprite shapes in our custom shader, and then I further enriched the classes with colour profiles. By working with our programming team, we came along experimental effects such as mirroring, which emulated the psychedelic effects of the inspiration images seen above.
Mockups
VANCOUVER COMIC JAMS, 2023
theme: make a comic, ONE PANEL AT A TIME, ONGOING.
theme: make a comic, ONE PANEL AT A TIME, ONGOING.
None of the comics have anything in common, other than being drawn by a bunch of people making comics together, typically one panel at a time. For the entire chronicles of the Vancouver Comic Jam, go to the website.
The game follows the Unicorn, a Bojack Horseman inspired character, with little to no dreams of ever changing himself. Some insane, rabid squirrels have a different idea.
The begrudging protagonist of the Unicorn Game, including one of my photos for a multimedia feel.
A background I drew: A storytelling screen meant to panned down during narration, featuring rabid squirrel sprites drawn by Crystal Woo. Gestural squirrel drawings shown on the right.
"One garden, three generations; tend the garden and watch as it grows and tells a story of three people apart but connected by the garden. This is a visual novel/point and click, single player game part of the WGJ 2020"
My contribution was to the stages of botanical drawings and the background, in addition to icons, logos and other collaborative feedback.
My contribution was to the stages of botanical drawings and the background, in addition to icons, logos and other collaborative feedback.
A series of the main flower blooming. I was responsible for executing the colour palette across all stages of the plants.
A flower in a stage of death, from neglect.
An end stage of the game: as the story progresses and you take care of them, the plants bloom.
Lug, 2019 at the Vancouver Global Game Jam + DEMO
Lug is a game about empty homes, cumbersome belongings, and frustration between partners as you take part in one of the most disheartening human traditions: The Move.
You may be several hundred meters tall, but you barely made it through omnipotent tower school. With the power to release waves of destruction and joy, you have skirted along for millennia.
The game play involves solving logic puzzles to interpret the prayers of the villagers. If you give them waves of what they want, they'll be prosperous. If you unleash a wave of horror, well...
The game play involves solving logic puzzles to interpret the prayers of the villagers. If you give them waves of what they want, they'll be prosperous. If you unleash a wave of horror, well...
The logo of Tall Order.
You've failed: A wave of locusts.
You've failed: A wave of water.
The starting screen of the game, for a better look at the advanced 3D graphics, download the game from the Jam page!
Three AMAZING towers to play as, NOW IN 3D!!
The villager, praying to the tower.
The tower (you) needs to decipher the prayer and answer it with a Wave of Something.
Take control of the bison herd and find grazing spots, expand your group and avoid the hunter trying to eat your delicious, delicious steak.
snake remake, 2015/16 (?)
at an online pixel jam
at an online pixel jam
You, the farmer, have erroneously fallen into the snake enclosure! Don't worry, food will distract the snake for now. RUN! Featuring a lovely pixel main screen, background, foodstuffs and more
