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As solo developer, I am a concept artist and designer, so spent significant time developing the art style for the game as well as designing and coding the game mechanics and game play code. Artwise, I do the concept art, game assets and animations, FX and UI animations.
The game started with the idea and some concept art, from which i prototyped the game mechanics and game play. I then began to work with a "concept art >>> game asset >>> in-engine" pipeline and each asset was coded into the game mechanics and tested. “Intersecta” is intended to be a full-blown IP based on some systems and concepts from a game called “Bugs in the System” that I made while at University.
A lot of advanced design has been occurring in the alpha stage of development. I am always questing for an organic feel with all aspects of digital multimedia, which includes how the game plays and how it feels. This page is an insight into the creative direction and artside development.
This game is a 2.5D game so the graphics are a mix of 2D and 3D arts and is built with Unreal Engine 5 (a 3D engine). There is a sci-fi art style; slightly cyberpunk and anime inspired. I always aim for a tight translation of concept art into game engine assets.
You can get a taste of the art direction and game graphics (assets, fx and animations) in this extended game play demo:
Here are some in-game screenshots:
Concept Art - "Intersecta fighters prepare to take off."
Concept Art - "Mosquito squadron in the hangar."
Everything starts out in design with concept art. It then gets made into a game asset. Please watch the HD Concept Art showreel for the concept design phase of the alpha build of Intersecta to see the quality of the ideas and the art behind the game's graphics and art style:
The game has several characters, NPCs that work with the player in a coop manner and they drive the plotlines. Sometimes the player gives commands to the NPCs such as targeting and switching squadron formation. There is a nifty real-time upgrade system that is based around an NPC who drops power ups onto the map. There are plans for 2 player local coop, and PvA game modes.
I did the animation for all of the assets. For the cinematics I use frame-based timeline animations and compositing techniques. There is a mixture of frame-based animation and algorithmic animation for the real-time animations as every moment and action is always different, and the animations have to fit what is happening in the scene.
You can see the in-game animations in the various game play footage, yet here are some examples of the cinematic animations:
I did the all the FX for the game. I have always been into special FX so needed to develop something I would love for this game. It feels quite impressive and gives a lot of immersion when the action and FX kick off.
FX are implemented with all the weapons, the explosions and used with various indicators to do with gameplay and UI elements. There is a mixture of frame-based timeline animation (2D and 3D) and algorithmically generated animations for the FX (done with code), along with some crafty techniques using materials and video FX.
Here is game play footage where you can see all the FX and animations working in real-time in Unreal Engine 5:
I designed the UI and menu interfaces which involved concept art/design and coding. Behind the scenes, there are a lot of customisations and a lot of player stats that are tracked, logged, stored, and then displayed in the various UI elements.
Currently, the HUD and in-game UI are intuitively showing: scores, shields, energy, lives, ammo, weapon heat (weapons can jam), achievements and mission objectives (and more). The player statistics system that I designed logs every shot fired, calculates accuracy, kills, K:D ratios, score, rank (the player ranks up), achievements and other attributes that help to immerse the player and reward good performance. There may be more features added and fine tuned before release.
Here is a sneak peak at the customisation screen:
I composed all the music in the game's soundtrack. I also did the audio programming (i.e. how the sound is interactive) and the audio design, using various home recordings and sounds that I sourced and engineered. A lot of thought went into making a sound palette to suit the feel of an inter dimensional sci-fi universe where cybernetic insects are the only types of species.
Here are snippets of the soundtrack:
