Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve made a post. Time sure flies.

 

The spring semester became frantic by the end, but I finished all of the tasks I had. I’m really satisfied how the first year has gone. Zoom Zoom Newton (the name of our semester project) was a really great learning experience, and turned out to be something I’m proud of.

 

Now that the new semester has started though, it’s become really apparent how far we’ve come. We spent the first week and a half prototyping an idea that we voted on after brainstorming for less than an hour. Unfortunately none of the games I voted for got selected from that, so it was a lesson in humility working on someone else’s passion project. The day that we were supposed to pitch the first round of games they cancelled morning of. Instead we did another round of ideation and prototyping, just like the first. Utkarsh Rao and I had been brainstorming the entire week and a half before that day since we weren’t super happy with how the round of prototypes went, so we were really prepared. Our game pitch got selected for prototyping, and as I sit here in lab typing this, we’ve just finished pitching all of the games developed over the last month. Of the 19 pitches, about 5 will continue into development. I’ve become really passionate about our idea, inspired by Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and the concept of nomadic shepherding. Many people have told me that it will be a shoe-in, but that’s only true if people vote for it. I’m nervous it won’t get picked, but aside from inviting people to play the prototype there’s little more I can do.

 

I’ve gotten ahead of myself. I’ve been working at Warner Bros. Avalanche for a few months now. It took some time to find where I fit in there, but I’m really enjoying the experience. Everyone I work with is super nice, and I’m learning a ton. There’s little I can say about the project there (NDA), but I’m very excited for the future. Balancing work and school has been a real challenge, especially since I’ve also taken a TA position. But money is a thing, and a good life doesn’t always come cheap. Still, in a general sense, this is the happiest I’ve been in a long time. I’m very fortunate.

 

Below are some of the concept pieces for the game we pitched today. We the devs, and the game are called “The Herd.” (Join the herd, get it?)

Miguel Angel Espinosa Calderon designed the creature concepts, we told him to go wild, no restrictions on what the creatures might look like. His work can be found on his artstation: https://www.artstation.com/migue22

 

Rita Kaczmarska designed the character and glider. The character is supposed to be androgynous, solitary, and windswept. She drew inspiration from Jewish tribal artwork and the steampunk universe.

 

The glider is designed to mimic the silhouette of the herd creatures. These are rough and will be refined, but we really liked the top left one. Rita’s work can be found here: https://www.artstation.com/ritakaczmarska