The following projects were completed as a result of the University of Texas at Dallas' Game Studies program, particularly as part of the Game Production Lab course. Special thanks goes out to Dr. Monica Evans, who gave me the chance to start working as a Producer in this class.
ArpeggioAn isometric "dungeon crawler" where the player commanded music and magic to strike down their enemies, focusing on the construction of basic chords.
PERSONAL NOTES:
My first time working as Creative Director, as well as my first time as both Director and Producer. I had pitched this many times before, and finally got the chance to make Arpeggio. This project was straightforward; a near pristine experience overall. The team was easily able to plow through whatever issues rose, and we successfully solved problems rather democratically. As both director and producer, this is certainly one of my proudest accomplishments--I hope that the rest of the team would agree. |
Arpeggio was a game concept I had developed trying to create a quasi-educational game. In other words, a game that introduced underlying concepts and methods of thoughts in order to help the player learn in a more formal setting. Arpeggio was born from music theory, teaching basic chord construction in triads. Though the player wouldn't know how to utilize these chords, introducing the idea of chord construction aimed to make the player more comfortable with the idea of music theory.
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Max & THE GRIMBLESThis small sandbox simulation game asks the player to control Max in her efforts to save the Grimbles from extinction. Unfortunately, her dog is a bit too unruly to help her along...
PERSONAL NOTES:
Thus far, this project is reminiscent of my very first. The idea was challenging but exciting--some of us new this would be difficult to pull off, but great fun if we could. The cost/benefit analyses of several systems were calculated, including what systems were purely experimental, and a scoped-back version was developed very early in the process. |
Return To ColorAn exploration game utilizing additive color. Each little color had their own special way of navigating the world in hopes of bringing color back to their world.
PERSONAL NOTES:
This was my first project to work alongside another producer. My producing partner for this project was very experienced; I was very excited and very grateful to work with her. In addition, this team certainly had some stars, including two great engineers, some passionate level designers, an amazing environmental artist, and a game designer from the industry. |
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CASTOR & PolLUXThe fighter on the keyboard and psychokinetic on a touch-screen. Kickin' butt and solvin' puzzles.
PERSONAL NOTES:
For the first half of development (May 2013 to December 2013), Castor & Pollux was under a different producer with a relatively large team. During the second half (starting January 2014), the team was hammered down to about half its size and was without a producer. The Creative Director asked me for some help, and so I stepped in for some assistance. It was difficult jumping into a team part-way through development already, and, since everyone was working on it more-or-less as an extracurricular (including myself), this was a very different experience when compared to other projects I had been working on. I had worked this while simultaneously managing Solar Rim, though I thoroughly enjoyed spending my time bouncing between two very different game projects. |
SOLAR RIMA zero-gravity multiplayer shooter in which Freelancers collect various minerals from randomly generated asteroids, then fire said minerals at their enemies.
PERSONAL NOTES:
Solar Rim was nearly opposite of the Body Shop experience. The team was generally small, and the scope of the game was minimalist--so minimalist, in fact, that many of the major works and assets scheduled found their way to completion within the first months. This allowed us plenty of polish time, and gave us some much-needed room to solve issues with networking as a multiplayer game. |
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BODY SHOPA 2.5D side-scroller in which the player controls a disembodied head, utilizing (and connecting to) various body parts and tools to solve puzzles and combat foes.
PERSONAL NOTES:
Body Shop was my first experience in not only a producer role, but in a game development environment. The team was generally large, with members from a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and knowledge bases. This certainly was a swift kick in the butt from cognitive dissonance, placing me in a situation where I lacked a lot of understanding and missed most of the technical jargon that was used. I definitely learned a lot about communication regardless of barriers this semester, as a result of my lack of background in development. |