Mariana Trek:
Mariana Trek is a visual narrative adventure game taking place inside a sea tower. Playing the role of The Diver, you are tasked with navigating the tower in an attempt to free a mysterious new friend. What mysteries does the sea spire hold? Dive and find out!
My Contributions:
Lead Producer, Task Management, Meeting Coordination, 2D Art Director, 3D artist, Prop Placement, Color Grading
Originally I joined this team to mainly do 2D and 3D work for the overall game, but that role expanded into producing and management of the entire team. I have planned every meeting and with every meeting wrote and mockup a detailed notes document of the subjects of each meeting. I created presentations, made a task list, a constitution, multiple Google forms for voting, joined private calls for mediation, and made character mockups, level designs, object designs, etc. I have heavily contributed to the 2D team with concept art of environments and characters, and have made multiple 3D models for levels while producing/managing all 13 people. I spend a lot of my work time off, helping other team members by doing check-ins.
Plant Whisperer:
Grow plants with your voice!
My contributions:
producer, concept, main dialogue/script, background line art, Purrtunia Plant, sound effects, main menu screen, concept artist(UI)
The group initially convened to propose and select project ideas, ultimately choosing to develop a game utilizing voice input, specifically focusing on volume and pitch. The primary objective was to create a game with voice input as the central mechanic, exploring cause-and-effect dynamics with plant growth. In our initial meeting, we delegated tasks and formed subgroups, primarily consisting of programmers and artists. We also established a realistic project goal considering our timeframe. To streamline development, we limited the scope by creating four plants and utilizing the Godot engine to implement volume and pitch measurement. Scheduled group meetings were set up to ensure project progress aligned with the final deadline. Additionally, we integrated a physical plant as the primary microphone for player input, enhancing immersion by attaching a miniature microphone to simulate interaction with the plant.
Work In Progress:
Beaux, a professional architect loses their drive and love for their work. They are transported within their memories to break through and find their original spark of architecture within one of their earliest memories.
My contributions:
Producer, Task Management, 2D Art Lead, Lead Animator, Level Designer, 3D Prop Artist
In the game jam, I played a key role in diverse areas, contributing assets, sounds, story direction, production, and more. I created a 4-sided 2D animated sprite, various 3D and pixel assets, intro and outro animations, sound design, and provided art direction. Additionally, I facilitated team coordination by scheduling meetings and setting deadlines, honing various skills in the process. Through the various assets and styles I used I intended to convey the visual growth/decay of artistic empowerment versus artistic burnout/decay. My main focus was my sketchy style to embody the dishevelment of experiencing burnout of a passion that once caused immense joy and motivation. I decided to use the wiggle line animation technique to further convey this. Using a sketchy style and the wiggle line animation technique, I conveyed the disheveled experience of burnout, contrasting with the previous joy and motivation derived from artistic passion.
I am extremely grateful and proud of the project my team and I produced together. I feel it is a very unique game that conveys what our original ideas and brainstorming wanted to cover. I learned that we need to know how to scale down large ideas. Game jams are insanely short and our team needed structure for the impending deadline. Overall it was a very successful project despite the immense amount of stress everyone felt within our group. I feel for future projects an established producer/manager is essential to keep people accountable and keep the project going forward promptly. Our team used Google sheet to organize who was responsible for specific tasks and assets which was extremely helpful. The project, a unique expression of our original ideas, highlighted the need to scale down ambitious concepts within the tight timeframe of game jams. Despite team stress, organizational tools like Google Sheets for task management proved effective, setting a foundation for future projects.
