Game | Sol

Be sure to watch in HD! Check out and download the game for Windows here! Well here it is. After all those months of work, dedication, frustration, and revelation, Sol is finally seeing the light of day. What started off last year as a pitch to my fellow classmates turned out to be the hardest the thing I've ever tried to do: create a videogame with a group of peers.  |THE PLAN Typically, junior year at SVAD means a collaborative project the entire junior class works on collectively to try and emulate what working at a studio would be like. I had a burning passion to attempt a videogame. Somehow, I managed to convince my fellow sophomore classmates to join me in such an endeavor. I also managed to convince the faculty to let us tread new ground, the interactive realm.  In previous years, the junior classes had been producing short films. A game was uncharted territory for both us as well as the professors, which really meant we had no one to run to for answers. Everything we did would have to be learned on the fly, in the moment. I came up with this idea of a crashed space explorer searching for a way off a mysterious planet. That was the basic premise for our game. The rest is history. |THE PRODUCTION Alien Planet. Sentinel. Facesquid. These were the terms that dominated our design process. An early mistake, we focused too heavily on a massive story too early. We wasted a lot of time arguing minute details of a grand story that never became actualized. That was probably one of the toughest lessons I learned in the hardest way. We actually had a working prototype with a Spero-looking character running and jumping working very early on but we got bogged down in the narrative which slowed the whole process down.  All the while, everyone was learning completely new software: Unreal Engine 4, Perforce, Substance Designer & Painter, Zbrush, and of course learning new methods and techniques in the software we were already learning: Maya, Photoshop, Mudbox, Illustrator etc. For example, game animations tend to be faster than film animations and can look weird or broken out of context, which was one hurdle our animators had to overcome. Needless to say, everyone learned a lot about the programs they were working with.  Production didn't really pick up until second semester. After what had seemed like an eternity, we finally began to make some breakthroughs in the art department and level design. Mechanics like the conduit switches started to shape up and the player movement model saw dramatic increase in funability. Spero started flipping, rolling, falling, diving and it made the game so much better, so much faster. By this time, my classmates and I had started to get the workflow and the software wrangled, and production felt like we were making tangible process. It's crazy how much polish happens in the last 10% of production. A lot of the game came together in crunch time before we had to present it at End Of Year Show. Things like the planet in the sky, clouds, mountains in the distance, etc. Felt great to get that amount of work done with a couple of my dedicated classmates. |THE PAYOFF There are so, so, so many things I would have done differently or would like to fix, but for a first attempt at a game, I'm not all that torn up about it. I learned so much from a design standpoint, as well as working with people and my own artistic strengths/weaknesses. I'm going to keep designing and making game worlds, because that's what I love to do. We had people playtest the game at our final End Of Year Show, and it was amazing to see people playing something I had worked on. Watching a couple of parents physically pulling their kids away from a game I designed brought a genuine sense of satisfaction. After all, that's what it's all about. Creating an experience that's engaging and enjoyable for someone else. Sol might not be perfect, complete, or what I set out to accomplish, but it was definitely a step in the right direction. I hope you enjoy the trailer and get a chance to try out our game!