Leo Rising
The Story
The portfolio of a graphics designer is like a calling card. A small representation of the designer and his capabilities. I've always found this way of self promotion to be quite vain. That's not necessarily a bad thing if one can keep perspective. My perspective on the matter is full tilt. If vanitas is to be a designer's sin, one might as well revel in it. So as a result I've always made an effort to make the designs exhuberant in one way or the other. Somewhat inspired by classic heraldry which is, in its own, a tool for shaping identity.
Graco Racer
With Endrone, there was a lot of emphasis on Flashgame development. Graco came to us with the request to make a campaign geared towards the young adult male gamer. Our first game was a competitive racing game. It had an assymetrical online multiplayer. Which ment that gamers would race timetrails and send their
laptimes over to their friends, challenging them to do better. I was responsible for the concept and design of the game. Drafts on paper and moodboards. Car and track designs. Working very closely with our talented flash developers we made the Graco Racer into one of our most memorabel games.
Graco Shooter
Thanks to the succes of the aforementioned Graco Racer we got the green light to proceed with the next Graco Game. Again, the young adult male demographic allowed us to make a somewhat more core game. This resulted in our Graco Shooter. A survival top down shooter. Graco is a manufacturer of paintbrush machines so
the player had to hold out against the onslaught of evil paint-roller-bots. The protagonist Max, the heroic mascot designed by our company, was prerendered in 3D in a top down perspective. The robots were done using segment animation in Flash.
Graco PacMax
A second Graco project ment another game. Max has to defend himself from the evil robot army once again. This time a pac-man clone, we added bombs to mix up the gameplay a bit. The grid
structure wasn't as refined as with the original pac-man because the Pacmax assets were much bigger and the whole game needed to remain easely readable.
Yeti Town
The popular children's site
Yeti gave us the assignment to create a role playing game based on the crazy world they have cultivated on their website. All is not well in the peaceful town of Yeti,
though. Why is everybody so confused and why has activity in the town ground to a halt? It's up to the player to find out what's going on and hopefully find a solution to the problem.
Puzzle Beetles
Destined to be a fun little game for iPad and iPhone, Buzzle Beetles was a game starring quirky Beetles who like to group up. The idea is very simple, dismiss grouped up beetles. The bigger the group, the bigger the reward. The addition of unique Epic Beetles give the game a unique touch. Each of these behemoths has its own superpower. Be it to release all Beetles at once or gather them around you or solving the game for you - just this once. If used wisely, the epic beetles can yield epic scores. Helping you beat the score of your friends.
Garfield's Desert Games
We made a series of games for a promotional site about Garfield exploring some of the world's most famous deserts. Each game has it's own unique gameplay and colour palette.
Garfield's Polar Trip
Garfield continues his excentric (read: clumsy) trip around the globe by taking in on the icy landscapes of the Antarctic. Taking on is putting it lightly, because nothing Garfield ever does could be describes as light. This game is about his particular descent of an annonymous mountain, onto a gletcher, onto a forest, flaura and otherwise unsuspecting fauna. The player has to try and minimise the collateral damage. He also has to push Garfield along the path. Because wanting or not: a storm is coming and Garfield shouldn't get snowed in.
Garfield's Jungle Swing
This project is based on a previous Garfield Jungle campaign. We made an entirely new game however. The player has to help Garfield gather as many coins as possible by jumping from vine to
vine. If he misses he might fall into the water, his one saving chance is to land on a lilypad which will bounce him back up.
Wataro Games
One of the projects that sprung from the success we had with the Graco Games (see above), Wataro is the first Belgian Online website where gamers can challenge fellow gamers to a duell where real money is at stake. All the game designs were done by
me and thanks to the positive feedback I was able to bend the rules a bit more my way. Granted these are games everybody knows and loves, I hope I could make them feel somewhat fresh all over again, and not once was I asked to make the logo bigger!
Mouse Maze
Mouse Maze is a project for the Technopolis technology fair in Mechelen, Belgium. It's an installation consisting out of the maze, which is shown on a 50inch monitor lying flat on it's back, and a touch screen on which visitors can plot a course for the mouse.
The idea is to get the mouse to the cheese at the end of the maze while evading pitfalls, mousetraps and dead ends. The latter can be taken quite literally; whenever the mouse falters or takes to many steps to get to the cheese, it'll end up in the cat's gullet.
Netblx
The Story
Netblx was a multiplayer tetris clone. Not exactly the same as the original, but still a fun little multiplayer game. Made for the
Netlog social network site, the most popular of its kind among teenagers
in Belgium. Perfect for this kind of competitive play, and talking trash on the message board afterwards. It was quite successful, the most played game on the site for a period of time.
Smog City
Made as a school assignment, Smog City is a flash game which allows the player to make an effort for the environment, and their wallet. The idea is that of a typical City Builder with a twist. The player has to pay for buildings; industrial, commercial, residential, parks... Taxes are ment to pay for it all in the long run. However, one just can't naively replace nature with civilisation and hope for the best. It has concequences. Next to the fact it's detrimental
for the public health it's very expensive. Environmental rules are imposed. Fines are have to be paid for every infraction. Clean air is to be bought to compensate for fried air. In Smog City the credit crisis is only an environmental disaster away. The smart player however will stand to gain. As tax payers are willing to pay the price for a healthy environment. Spiting less fortunate mayors. this game gives "green with envy" quite a new meaning.
Magnetone 2D
An experiment for school that turned into a full-fledged game. Magnetone started as a magnetism tech demo in Flash. The idea is simple: get the like coloured and shaped neutrons. Beware though, as the load of your neutron gets more negative, so does its size increase, making you more vulnerable to protons. Absorbing those will have an averse effect, making you smaller until you're eventu-
ally neutralised. To make the game a bit more strategic, I added a draw mechanic. Which throws up a barrier-line in between locations where Neutrons are absorbed. The game gets harder as you progress. The player neutron gets heavier and more difficult to control. On top of that the levels become visually harder to play.
Magnetone 3D
Magnetone eventually became part of my final work, in which I wrote about the evulution of computer-generated and game graphics. I took my own game as an example and translated it into 3D. I used Director, lightwave3D for the models, and made the new game into Shockwave title. The idea, again, was to collect certain space orbs while evading other orbs. When the gameplay
started to feel like the asteroid scene from Empire Strikes Back I knew I hit the mark. The game was controlled using analog sticks and had full pitch, yaw, roll and powerboost control. As you progressed further into the game, the asteriods became bigger, up to colossal sizes, adding to the epic, space-like feel.
Warhammer 40k: Dawn Of War: banners and badges
Once upon a time I played Relic's rather exellent strategy game; Dawn Of War. I was quite active in the player community and got involved with a project in which talented players and Warhammer 40k fans would create banners for ingame use. I wasn't very well
versed in the lore of the universe so I took some liberties while designing these. The story in which an official Warhammer 40k novel used one of my deviant designs on its cover, is a story I would have to tell you in person though.
440hz
A school assignment in which I had to explore just what could be done by using the limited colour palette of a television test screen. Of course there are infinite possibilities but I choose to go back to the 8-bit era of gaming. I made a quirky 3D sprite animation in
which a persistant Mario Clone goes for broke. Literally. The very short short movie was fully modelled and animated in Lightwave3D. Let me assure you though, this took place before the quiet internet craze in which sprites were regularly turned into 3D models.
Weapons of Mass Observation
A short movie about Weapons Of Mass blank. I chose the term "observation". The war in Iraq still fresh in mind, I reasoned that observation over an area would guarantee control more so than guns, rockets or bombs. A world in which Big Brother invades
a country rather than Unkle Sam. The shortmovie depicts a squad of stealth fighterbombers launching missiles at a bleak city. After which treelike constructs sprout from the impact craters, growing security cameras from their branches.
Dead Man Stalking
A 3D shortmovie made as my final work for MCT. The dead have risen from their grave and a stalwart Paladin is dispatched to combat the undead menace. It is a project that had more technical
than artistic prowess. Some mistakes haunt me till this day wanting me to do the whole thing over some day. I may have to raise from my own grave to find the time to do it though.
Graco City
A second campaign for Graco. The idea was to have a little corner of the web to hang out at, sponsored by Graco, of course. It was dubbed Graco City, and was fully hand drawn and animated. It
also served as a gateway for the Graco games, old and new. Each building in the city represents a "page" of content of the site.
Ben The Bever's Forest
A project made to promote dental hygene in children. Ben is the friendly neighourhood beaver with giant, sparkly, healthy teeth. CM, Ben's parent, had the idea of making an interactive environment for him with places to relax and learn. The site was loosely inspired by classic point and click adventure games, easy to
use in order to suit the needs of the target demographic. The project also had a static twin site where information was accessible without having to discover it in the woods. The environments were hand drawn, Ben's animation was through cell shaded 3d animation.
Garfield Domino Mania
A supporting site for the Domino Mania campaign that will sweep through Europe like a late summer rainstorm. The site offers an interactive way to learn about the culture of all current European countries. Each country has their own specific set of dominoes for players to collect. There's also a quiz where players have to drag
dominoes into the correct corresponding country. Working with the Garfield property also gave me a clearly defined set of boundries, but the clean cartoon style proved to be quite inspirational in the end.
Endrone Company Site Concept
When there's a bit of a slump I have some time to experiment and try out some new designs. One of these experiments is this Endrone Company site. It hasn't been made yet, and it propably never will. But I included it here none the less as I wasn't unhappy
with the result. A portfolio for games, screenshots and movies, a dedicated blog page, contact page, a team page and a front page with eyecatchers and the latest news.
Monkey Tales Games Site Concept
