Meet Roy. I think that’s his name, still working it out. He’s an aging Repair Technician for the Greenfield Power Company. I think he has a more interesting story to tell than the boy with the umbrella, so I’m gonna give him the lead. Really feels like I’m never gonna be able to complete this project, but even still, I’m having fun imagining the world and all its inhabitants.
Dialing in the design and materials for the Greenfield protagonist, and reaching a visual one-to-one between desktop and mobile.
The thing about working alone on a project that would normally be done by a team of people, is you’re going to end up wearing a lot of different hats. Somedays you’re an artist, somedays a programer, and other days a graphic designer making a pause menu and control system that’s bound to confuse even the brightest among us. Keeps things interesting to say the least, and if any of those hats ever start to feel a little too tight, you just put a new one on.
Building out some environmental puzzles while I continue developing the art direction for Greenfield. Feeling momentum now. Making an image in your mind’s eye visible to anyone, takes time and takes effort. When you can get it right though, and seen just the way you see it, it’s really something.
This week saw building and lighting a new environment for Greenfield. Sculpting light and controlling the eye is always an easier task without the distraction of color.
Revisiting and refining the design of the protagonist in Greenfield. I like the idea of keeping the face featureless, so players might project their own emotions onto the character based on their own experience in the game. Or to sound less full of it, I just like the way it looks.
More adventures in game dev. This tool I built takes a square tessellated plane and manipulates its scale to make something that resembles a terrain. I can then map other objects to it, like grass, weeds, rocks, bushes or anything else I’d like. I can get even more granular and control different properties of those objects too. I can connect that piece of terrain to any other as if they were legos and quickly build out an entire environment in just a few seconds, with just a few clicks.
I wrote the logic for this once, and that took time, but I can reuse it over and over again, able to create an infinite number of variations. It’s a essential concept in Unreal that I’m still wrapping my head around to be honest. I can tell you with certainty though, using tools to make new tools is pretty satisfying.
I have something cool to share today. But first, a story.
When I was a kid, I played a lot of video games. I rarely play any today, but have never stopped being fascinated by them. They sit at an intersection of some things I’m really passionate about. Visual art, storytelling and technology. When I enrolled in college 18 years ago (GOOD LORD), I naturally wanted to study game design. But as I learned more about the program, I started to believe the math requirement was beyond me. I was young, and let the idea that I didn’t do so well in school define what was and wasn’t possible for me. So I chose a Digital Arts & Design program instead. I still loved what I studied, and have since built a career that often puts me at the intersection of those passions I mentioned. It’s pretty cool, and I’m thankful for it. BUT… I never stopped wondering what could’ve been if I hadn’t quit game development before I even started it.
Then came the pandemic and lockdown and with that, some time. I used that time to finally start learning how to make video games. Turns out, it’s pretty hard. A lot of one step forward, two steps back. Even after years of working at it, it’s still hard. but I’ve sure learned a lot. Above all, I learned that making a video game is an amount of work not meant for a single person. Especially when it’s not your full or even part-time job. But man, it’s fun, and I love it. So I keep at it when I can.
But back to this cool thing I wanted to share… I made a trailer for a game project I’m developing. It’s called GREENFIELD. There’s still a daunting amount of work ahead that stretches farther than I can see, but I’m so relieved to finally have others see what’s been living only in my own imagination.
More info about the project here If you play games, you can wishlist it on Steam today too. More to come, probably not soon.