Team PokPok participated in the Global Game Jam 2012 in Sydney. It is basically a game jam event where you get to create a game in only 48 hours based on a common secret theme.
We created a little experimental game called Maru. My role was being the designer and animator.
The video below is a basic preview of how the game plays.
It was an interesting experience indeed. I was very tired and grumpy after the 48 hours, but I learnt a lot from it and I'm now even more hungry to create more...
Ahoy! Happy International Talk Like a Pirate day!
To join in the celebration, I would like to share a little treasure by giving ye all a sneak peek first ever video preview of Team Pok Pok(Dan Adijans and I)'s mobile game, Captain Skyro. Arrrrr! Enjoy!
It was real fun to work on the video preview. It's is still work in progress of the game but we thought that the Talk Like a Pirate day was a good excuse enough to share with the gaming community what we have been up to during our spare time.
First, Dan and I brainstormed a few rough storyboards in terms of the sequence and flow of the screens. We have a solid library of assets now already created for the game. So it was an easier process to grab the graphical and audio elements that we wanted to show and put it in a small video trailer.
The fact that we are at a very advance stage of prototyping, we were eager to record some of the game footage. Then it was a matter of editing and animating, which I have done a lot lately and been enjoying more and more...
In the end, it's not really a proper game trailer, but just a fun little teaser to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate day! Yarrrrr!
You can learn more about Team Pok Pok (made up of Dan and I) here.
We are also honoured to be featured on Kotaku here.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Rabbit Revenge is the latest Flash game by Dan and I. This was created specifically for the Android mobile phones which are capable of running flash on them.
The screenshots here show the game in action, where the idea is to control the track rather than the main character. All the characters and props were animated in flash but with the mobile platform in mind, they were kept as simple and as less memory intensive.
Merci to our friend Christophe for lending us his android and for his inspiration: hon hon hon! :)
Rabbit Revenge is the latest flash game hand crafted by Dan and I. The aim here was to target the mobile platform and bearing that mind, optimization was priority.
Below is the concept art during concept phase where we came up with the simple idea of dragging elements to the stage to alter the journey of our protagonist:
It was a lot of fun to come up with the imaginary world around a magician...
As usual, I start off with lots thumbnail sketches trying different options and refining and the character gets stronger visually and conceptually...
The same process with the other characters to be created.
Rabbit Revenge is nearly complete, so stay tuned for updates!
Burney was quickly created for the 'MochiAds 60 Seconds to Fame contest' which limited the game time to 60 seconds only.
The idea was to keep the controls simple, using just the space bar to jump with Dan Adijans's coding skills. The concept started from the idea of burning every objects around, which sparked the creation of the hot character of Burney.
A lot of little sketches were done to find the hottest character
A rough layout always help to see the big picture
Colour concept in Photoshop before going into Flash
Two months in the making, the game centers around Haku, a dragon, and his quest to find his true spirit. There was a heavy focus on player interaction and immersion, as we strived to achieve an engaging feeling of flight using motion, sound and graphics.
Haku - Spirit Storm has won a prize in the latest MochiAds contest for best integration of the Freespin3D plugin which was used to handle the 3D models for the dragon's body segments. The models were handcrafted, textured and then imported into the engine, which are then passed on to Dan to work on his magic codes to develop the game engine.
The black and white art direction plays on the whole good versus evil theme whilst desperately trying to keep processor usage down.
Doodles that eventually turned into game art down the line
Thumbnail sketches for the screen layout
Initial concept
Concept of the dragon and of it's body parts in 3d
Some colour experiments for the different environments
The key objective of this project was to convert a simple 2D game into a Papervision3D app. The majority of the game mechanics are processed in 2D and then rendered with 3D models which were imported and then handled by Dan Adijans's game engine supported by the Papervision3D technology.
We managed to get out a fairly solid PPV3D game, but the major downfall it the awkwardness of the controls. But overall it was a good first introduction to creatively bring into Flash the 3D objects that were modeled by myself.
Quick concept in Photoshop with the help of my wacom tablet
Basic 3d shapes, modeled and textured to be imported in Flash with Papervision 3d
Captain Skyro: The Cloud Climber was the first side project by Dan and myself.
I handled the graphics and animation while Dan built the physics and game logic .
The project was built with the MochiAds Rockstar competition in mind, and start to finish it took a little over a month. We played around different unique game engines and we really like the drag and elastic release game play.
A month later and results were in and we had won 1st place in the judges votes.
The sketches above show my process of sketching little drawings to quickly try different options of what could work in game.
This is one of the early quick digital painting
concept to a a sense of the general feel of the game
A quick overview in Flash of some animation states and the simple setup of the main characters
Once I'm happy with the general art direction of the main game screen, then it's a matter of designing for the other screens with different environments.
Play it here: http://www.adijans.com/skyro/
The sketches above show my process of sketching little drawings to quickly try different options of what could work in game.
