Gloom Bloom
Lots of things have changed this year. Changing jobs, moving across the midwest back home, transitioning to my first place to call my own. I don’t want to give some sappy post-mortem on my time spent at Neo-Pangea, but I think it’d be disrespectful to not mention my Reading family when they were all I really had for the past two and a half years. I had a blast in PA, worked on just about the coolest projects I could ever fathom being a part of (one of which recently earned a Webby Award for the animation!!), and in addition, I met amazing, respectable people that helped me grow into the artist I am today. They’re pretty sweet folks, and I still communicate with them today. I chose to leave Neo-Pangea in order to start a new chapter in my life. Being away from Cincinnati for nearly 8 years straight just made me appreciate everyone from back home that much more. By golly, it’s been an adventure. A thrilling one at that.
Mourou as a team, while defunct, is still in communication. We’re making some headway on our horror RPG epic, Shaded Chasm. There isn’t a whole lot we can show right now, but if the stars align, we will be showcasing a prototype in the coming days.
Rook
Look at all the dust! I haven’t touched this site for over a year now. It’s really crazy how time has flown by over these months. Everyone must think I haven’t been up to anything. In truth, things have been quiet here. Work continues at Neo-Pangea as per usual, however, I feel I have been working on so many things that I do not know what to post on my site. Because of most of my work being under the umbrella of Neo-Pangea, it doesn’t feel right having all of my updates being an echo of the Neo-Pangea updates. And so, with not much personal work going on, I haven’t made an update yet during the calendar year of 2014.
Alas, the last time I posted I was working on Shaded Chasm and competing in video game jams. Not much has changed in a year, as I am still doing that same thing! Just this month Mourou competed in the 2014 Develteam Halloween Jam (there was no summer jam this year). You can see my animation atlas and concept art for our entry, Rook, above. I’m not sure if we will win first place, but regardless if we do, it was a blast. We are only going up against one other team this year as compared to last year when we were one of ten teams competing. Also this year, we only had a week to complete our game, rather than two, and our team was half the size that it was last year. I am still proud of the work we accomplished, and I think I’ve improved greatly in my animation technique, speed, and efficiency. I still can’t believe we accomplished so much in a such a short amount of time outside of our fulltime schedules. My style is evolving, which is exciting to see side-by-side with what I did last year on V∆MPSP!RE. Check out the playthrough below! The game can be downloaded here: Rook v1.0
V∆MPSP!RE Wins!
So a few weeks ago Mourou had the privilege of participating in the Develteam Summer Game Jam. It went kind of like the previous 49 hour animaion competitions that we’ve participated in. We were given a theme to work with in order for it to qualify and the theme was “Dual Mode Retro”. This meant that the game had to be either 2D or 2.5D (retro) and had to have two completely separate modes of gameplay (not minigames). Well, we came together and ultimately settled on my idea for a reverse shooter mixed with stealth platformer. The result was rather awesome (with quite a few bugs and things that didn’t make it into the build we submitted). Regardless, our game, V∆MPSP!RE, made it to the top and was voted 1st Place by the Develteam community! We have defeated the competition and taken home a gold (and some Steam games).
This marks Mourou’s first foray into indie game development. Watch the video of me playing it below and see what you think. We all work fulltime jobs while doing this completely in our spare time over the course of two weeks. Enjoy!
Follow the link on YouTube in order to download and play the game for yourself. In the coming months we will be tweaking it in order to release a mobile version to the Windows Phone 8 store. If it does well there, we may even port it over to other platforms as well.
Doomsday Castle Defender
It feels like ages since I worked on this game, but alas, I’m finally making a post about it! Really cool seeing the commercials on TV about the game, gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Neo-Pangea was in charge of creating this video game for the new Doomsday Castle show on National Geographic. While other team members took care of the programming, UI, music, and more, I was able to have a large role creating all of the in-game animations, matte painting, and isometric sprites. Very fun. The game is an isometric tower defense game where you build your own castle, defend against the hordes of the apocalypse while getting the Doomsday Castle family members to work together the best they can! The more bandits you defeat, the more weapons you unlock.
Give it a whirl here! Even Machinima had a good time playing it:
Masked Thane of Phantasmia
Well, after many months I am back for an update. Typically when there is no internet-based artwork flowing from the depths of my dome it is because I am preoccupied with much more pressing and dire work… such as getting hired as a full-time animator and illustrator for design boutique, Neo-Pangea. This may come as old news to some of you, but I figured it was about time to make a post about it on my site. I started out as a subcontractor back near the end of September and have recently been signed on to full-time work! Because of this, I have moved on over close to the studio in West Reading, PA. Moving, holidays, work, all that jazz… man this site is dusty – look at all the cobwebs!
To check out Neo-Pangea’s website simply go here: http://www.neo-pangea.com/ I’m stoked to be working daily as a 2D-Animator on the team. Keeping with Neo’s theme of having “characters” instead of simple titles (i.e. “Baron of Pixels”, “Jack of all Portrayed”), I have donned the title of the “Masked Thane of Phantasmia”. (photos to come mid-January) So just what work have I done in the past few months? TONS! We’re talking about multiple handfuls of projects for AAA clients in America’s TV and medical industries. However, things are pretty hush-hush right now and so this is currently the only video I am allowed to post: Faceblam!
In addition to work for Neo-Pangea, I have completed some freelance gigs. One of those was with Misfit’s Attic’s buddy studio, Team 2-Bit. I animated an in-game cut-scene for their upcoming game, Fist Puncher. Head on over to their website to get all the deets: http://www.team2bit.com/ They are incredible guys rockin’ it on the indie scene. Their game has some awesome characters and gameplay as well. My personal fave is “The Beekeeper” – be sure to check it out!
A Virus Named TOM Debut!!
It’s finally here!! AVNT is coming to Steam on August 1st!
Just look at that shnazzy new trailer, look at all that co-op footage goodness. VS mode looks like so much fun too! Congratulations to the team for creating our very first game. I am so totally grateful for being a part of such a stellar group of individuals. We can finally say we’ve shipped a title! (and a quality one, at that!)
Kudos Misfits Attic!
もうろう 