The following two pieces explore the relationship and variations between hues, shades and tints.  The first image utilizes only black and white and tints and shades of the two. The second variation utilizes a teal hue, with shades, tones and tints of said hue.

Being that I love to travel, I’m fascinated by cultures around the world.  These pieces came to fruition by immersing myself in the studies of other cultures and finding images of people dressed traditionally and exuding the culture at hand.  As the artist, in creating these pieces, my sole goal was to recreate the beauty and feelings in what I saw.

 

This piece combines the idea of modern and traditional media.  The original piece was created in acrylic and color pencil as part of a series that emphasizes our world as a melting pot of cultures in which everyone belongs.  The piece was then altered by way of glitching.  The final piece reemphasizes how not only are other cultures present, but also that they’re not going anywhere.

With influences as diverse as Andy Warhol and Frida Kahlo, a new combination was generated from both traditional and modern layers.

 

My last piece came to fruition amidst the current political issues surrounding border control and family separations.  One of my favorite aspects of art is the opportunity it gives me as a creator to embody struggles that not only pertain to myself but also to the community in which I belong.  I come from a family of immigrants who were lucky enough to have gained their legal status prior to all that is happening today.  The issue is still very near to my heart given that I was born and raised in East Oakland, a community that continues to flourish with the help and hard work of immigrants throughout the city.

 

 

 

 

 

This class was an entirely new experience for me.  I was never one to have played many games, so I had a lot to learn coming into this course.  Not only did I learn the history and elements of a variety of games, but I learned how to make them from the first phase to the last.  It was interesting to learn each stage of game making and how the initial phases revert back to simple marker and paper prototypes.

 

I think when you initially plan on creating an elaborate digital game you don’t envision creating a paper mock up, you kind of just want to jump right in to the digital part.  However, after learning the benefits of each game making step and process, you begin to understand that it’s all interrelated.  For example, after reading about the aesthetics of games and then play testing game prototypes, you get to see exactly how aesthetics present themselves within those play testing your game.  In my case, it allowed me to decide which aesthetics I wanted to include based on the emotions I wanted to evoke from those playing my games.

This course required that I consistently read and write about games, how they came to be and how to create my own.  However, I was also able to play games and more importantly create my own.  I think the most important thing I learned from this course is that foundation is key.  Any good game relies on an even better foundation.  This foundation includes, fundamental knowledge of game history, game play and game design amongst many things.

The town is crawling with unhappy babies! Be a good granny and help save the residents of your town and stop the crying! Equipped with the latest cookie gun in town, run through the streets and feed as many babies before time expires!

Creators:

Chaz Acheronti – Programmer

Chris Dal Porto – Tile Sprite Artist (Grass, Cement, Roads)

Jasmine Zamora – Baby and Grandma Animator

Ki Sung Park – Object Artist (Fire Hydrant, Trash Can)

Controls:

WASD / DPAD : Right, Left, Up, Down

SPACEBAR / TRIGGER: Fire

Q, E, K / LEFT TRIGGER: Aim

Alpha Testing

I decided to Alpha Test our game with friends and family members who varied in game playing experience.  Seeing older generations playing video games was an experience in itself!  Aside from that, their experiences and input was a learning experience as a designer because I was able to see what worked and didn’t work for those who do and don’t typically play video games.

Based on this alpha testing what I gathered was this;

What worked:

-Artwork: Players enjoyed the colors and artistic styles.

-Music:  Players enjoyed the music and felt as though it fit with the game style.  They also liked the baby gurgling noises.

-Premise: Players enjoyed the premise of the game and thought using grandmas, cookies and babies was a fun and cute idea.

Needs Improvement:

-Scoreboard: Players would have liked a better indicator of how they were doing/ how they did by the game’s end.

-Happify indicator:  Players thought that that there should be a better indicator for when a baby was happified.  Perhaps a different position to indicate a baby was happified.  Many players continued to feed the babies cookies thinking they were still unhappy and wasted time instead of moving on to the next target.

-More/Different Ammo:  One suggestion was including a baby sitter at the player’s disposal that was capable of happifying more than one baby at a time.  Other suggestions included adding different types of ammo like pacifiers that would have different/stronger effects.

Personal Improvements:

I actually really agree with the improvement suggestions that the play testers suggested.  I’m happy with the alpha test of the game but as one of the artists, outside of suggestions play testers presented, think there could be some more art that I can add.  Perhaps more grandma selections or varying selections players can choose from.  By adding more art a lot of the alpha testing suggestions would also be catered to (i.e. scoreboard, more/different ammo, different baby position to indicate a happy baby, etc.).

 

Moonwalk Jackson

 

Credits:

Jasmine Zamora

Jerry Gaines

Audio:

Essa. Boss Loop 1, soundcloud.com/essa-1/boss-loop-1-free-to-use.

As of now, the collision portion of our game is not working properly.  Instead of battling enemies when coming in contact with them, characters just kind of stand in front of each other.  We are also working on figuring out how to pick up the victim and bring her to safety.

The premise of the game is to safely acquire the victim/hostage and take her to safety, away from multiple roaming evil moon men.  Moonwalk Jackson is able to walk in both directions and jump in order to evade enemies and ascend platforms.  Players utilize the arrow keys in order to direct motion and the space bar to jump.

The game in its current state, is simpler than we envisioned.  We hit a few bumps along the road but hope to get it to the level we intended for it to be.  There is currently only one level, which we plan on expanding.  We also discussed including more player actions like punching, fighting, more dancing, etc.

It’s amazing to see the progression from what we had when there was minimal artwork and function to what we have now, even in its simple state.  This is definitely a game I’m interested in expanding and building upon.

 

It’s finally time to dabble in creating a digital game of my own!

This task was started with my game design partner, Jerry.  In creating this game we took the knowledge of our previous board game trials and processes and started a digital prototype for a new game.  Once again we went into this process open-minded and not really dead-set on any one type of game.  After throwing out a couple of ideas, we decided on a simple, one-player game in which the player acts as a hero and saves victims from various enemies.

I was tasked with the art work, while Jerry handled the coding and technicalities of game play.  With such a broad game premise I had no idea where to even begin with character design.  So I basically did what I think anyone would do, continue to create characters until I made one that I thought was cute!  Okay, I’m only halfway joking.  The process did prove to be something of the sort.  I created a couple of characters, human and fantasy until I created one that I thought I could build off of.  Once I created the main character who would serve as the hero, I created the enemy.  I chose a human hero and a fantasy-monster enemy.  Following suit with the hero, the victim to be saved is also a human.

After designing the main characters I created multiple frames/ sprites to allow for them to walk, jump and punch.  After doing so, I gave it all to Jerry to bring to life.  After he put his coding spin on things, we had the very beginning of a digital game, “Moonwalk Jackson.”  When putting the sprites together for a test run, Jerry said it looked like our main character was moonwalking and we ran with it.  He named him Moonwalk Jackson and alas, “Moonwalk Jackson” came to life.

This evening we were able to play-test the rough version of what we have so far and surprisingly, those who tested the game were pretty receptive to what we had so far.  As the producer, I asked a couple of the players if they felt as though the artwork meshed well with both the premise of the game and just aesthetically together as a whole.  Responses to this question were favorable with the only suggestions at this point were to include more character interactions.  Taking this suggestion into mind, we decided to increase the number of villains and to make said villains different instead of settling on just one for the entirety of the game.  In doing so, it allows for us to create villains that interact differently with Moonwalk Jackson and the victim.  We also decided to add more player options for the main character aside from running, jumping and punching.  Exactly which new options to include are still being decided.

I’d have to say that tonight’s play-testing proved to be extremely beneficial.  More updates coming soon!