Cindy Vu - Game Design Portfolio
Process of "(Spacemen, Strategists)^2"
Feel free to click through the images and see some notes!
Main focus: Game Design, Art
The Concept
Game design pitch and concepts.
At the very beginning, every student was required to design a game, create a document/poster and then give a pitch that lasted about 5 minutes. Once every game was pitched, everyone would vote for which game they wished to work on for the term. Out of approximately 30 games, only 6 games could be chosen to work on.
"(Spacemen, Strategists)^2" (or "SS Squared" as I will be referring to it as from now on) was among the top 6 voted. Since I was the creator of the game, I was not only the lead artist but also the director. I had a bit too much fun with this one.
The game would operate similar to "Mario Maker", where players would take turns designing levels and then play through each level created. Whoever reached the goal first would earn points and the winner was whoever had the most at the end. I was also told "Ultimate Chicken Horse" had the same premise, but I didn't know the game at the time I created this.
Art Style - "Paper-y"
Shots of gameplay, assets, and part of an unused ending.
The art direction I wanted to go with was something akin to Paper Mario, where characters would be 2D like paper and the surrounding world/blocks would be 3D. I've always been a fan of this art style, so it was a lot of fun putting it into practice. While some group members didn't feel it would let us stand out compared to the other games in our class, it ended up working out in our favour.
The characters, block textures, particles, and other animation assets were drawn and edited together by me. The short "ending" at the end was part of a larger unused trailer that didn't make it in the final version. A friend of mine drew the frames in MS Paint and I edited everything together in Clip Studio Paint. Instead, this segment ended up being used in the promotional trailer located on the special site for this game.
Gameplay Elements
Scoping is hard.
Originally, we intended to have multiple environments and different blocks for each environment to spice things up per gameplay. Unfortunately, due to a lack of time, we had to scrap this idea and stick to one environment for now: the tower. We did end up taking a few bits from both showcased environments (grassy plains - dirt block | ice mountains - ice block) and used them in the prototype.
Feel free to try the game out here!
