Transistor

This week I'm posting about "Transistor". "Transistor" is a new video game that's being released in 2014 by SuperGiant Games. This is the trailer for "Transistor".

In "Transistor" you play as Red, a singer who finds an intelligent sword and because of that is constantly being pursued by the antagonists of the game. This trailer, shown at the announcement of the game is ripe by 2D animation both from the actual game, and cinematics created for and played throughout the trailer. This is a 2D game meaning all of the animation within it is in 2D. This is also a nice piece of work to look at because it really demonstrates how much animation goes into a video game. There's all of the cutscenes, the character animation, the environments, and more, these are all things that have to be created in order to make a complete game. In this trailer you can see all of that. You can also plainly see how all of the elements in the game are in 2D. In order to make a good video game, you need to think about everything you would think about while making a movie. Framing the scenes, lighting, costuming, all of that. I feel like sometimes people forget that games are art and I think this trailer really illustrates that well.

Lap Slap App

Tomorrow I'm excited to be a part of the Park School's "Pitch It!" idea pitch session. Cody and I will be presenting a game that we developed last year that is in its prototype stages. I don't want to talk too much about it (we don't have our idea protected yet) but it is a 2D game developed in Unity, a 3D engine. I am extremely proud of the work we have put into it and truly believe that the game will be a success if it can make it to the android and mobile markets. Working on this game was my first real foray into the world of animation and motion graphics. One of the members and I worked on getting hands to animate. We began by looking for models of hands, or the assets of such, to work with and manipulate in Unity. What we found nearly blew our minds...getting hands to animate in 3D space was much more difficult than we anticipated. I'd never heard of rigging before this point and even now it sounds like an incredibly daunting task (but I really hope to get into that sort of thing). So we switched over to 2D animation, which I was just beginning to learn (and still am). My fellow art designer and I used Photoshop to construct the sprite sheets which were then loaded into the game and animated through code. It was fun and in the end I am proud of the prototype we built for the game. We hope to develop it further over the course of the year, if, i mean WHEN we are chosen by the panel of Park alumni. Here is a sneak peek screenshot of the up and coming big hit to the mobile markets: The Lap Slap App