Pre-FIEA Personal Projects

 Yo!

Today I wanted to talk about some level projects I worked on before I got into FIEA. After I graduated UCF undergrad and didn't get a job, I started working on some indie-type game work. I figured, if I published a game, that'd look good on my resume. If I didn't, I'd still learn a lot and get some good portfolio work out of it. Now that I'm a bit wiser, I feel like the latter was more true than the former. 

The game I decided I wanted to work on was a sequel to my undergrad Game-Art project, Tempe Goes to Wawa. That game was only focused on art and atmosphere, and to be completely honest, I came up with the pitch document mere minutes before it was due. It's obviously a pretty silly idea, but the 'autobiographical' nature of it meant I could add references to my friends and stuff in my life, which made it more fun to work on. That's important when you're doing solo-dev work- finding ways to stay motivated is key! Ask anyone! That being said, the original game was pretty limited in terms of gameplay and scope. I really wanted to try making just one singular Zelda-style dungeon in 3D, so I decided as a follow up, I'd use Tempe Goes to Wawa as a base and try to expand it into 3D. 

I'd done lots of gamedev in GameMaker, which I still argue is the best 2D engine, but my aspirations had grown to 3D, so I wanted to learn Godot engine. Godot is 100% free and open source, but it's still pretty new. It's lacking in tools, but it still has a ton of potential- to me at the time, that was super attractive! The problem with that, and the reason I've gone into this long-ass introduction, is that Godot had (at the time) no in-engine level building tools. Instead, I got good at using Blender for LD. 

Even though my goal was to make a Zelda style dungeon, I still wanted to include the build-up to the dungeon, which would have to take place in some sort of an overworld. In hindsight, this was a bad idea, but I guess that's what happens when you don't restrict ideas with scope. It's fun to run wild sometimes! The overworld I wanted to make was a fictionalized version of Downtown Orlando, where I live. I wanted the player to feel like they were in a large city, even if most of it couldn't be explored. In reality, only a small portion of the city would be playable, as shown below in red:

Still, to give the illusion of a living city, I needed to build out more. On the upside, I was using a low-poly, stylized art style that saved a ton of art work, but on the downside, I was still making all the models and textures myself. It was a bit of a grind, but it illustrated to me a lot of LD strategies to create the illusion of a large space without spending a ton of work. It's all based on the player's view- tall buildings will block more space, and require less buildings behind. Alternatively, open areas, such as the river in blue above, will require more assets to make believable. 

I also was reminded of how important reference images are. Building these buildings (lmao) without reference was slow, painful, and usually, didn't look good at the end. Alternatively, the buildings I liked the most took the least time, because I could simply use an applicable reference and follow it!

Recognize this bad boy?

Simple! Hopefully I don't get sued!

Anyways, the overworld ended up being a big time-sink. I don't have any regrets, since I learned a lot, but I also wanted to spend some time on smaller interiors you might find along the way to the dungeon. 

Here's a noodle store I worked on. As far as I'm aware, this one is pretty close to done. In terms of LD, it's pretty simple, since this is just an indoor area for the player to talk to a bunch of seated NPCs and move through, so all the work went into the aesthetics. I think it has a pretty warm, chill vibe. In Godot, the TV's even work! Wow!

It's still very stylized, but I think it gets the vibe across. It looks even better in engine! Still, this was more a test of modelling and texturing than actually designing gameplay. There'll be areas like this in games, where the art can take a bit of a lead, but maybe it's not the best portfolio work. 

Speaking of bad portfolio work, the next scene I wanted to work on was a gas station-type convenience store. This was a terrible idea. I spent maybe two weeks making so many different brand items. You can't frame a convenience store without making a bunch of shitty products, it'll just feel wrong. It probably doesn't need to be as dense as this, but it can't be empty. 

This was around the time I started applying to FIEA, and my priorities changed. You can tell I gave up by how much of the rest of the gas station is modelled:

...None at all! Two weeks well spent. I don't know if there's a lesson to be learned from this, besides, stay focused on your goals and what you need/want. I still don't regret any of this, especially since back then, it was with the mindset of putting a 3D world together quickly, but I don't recommend it for getting a job in the industry.