2008


Grapplon April-July 2008

Concept

For our final 3rd year project, we had to work 4-5 months on a game for a very special client. The clients were Bluetongue and THQ, but we actually made it for BlueTongue. It was our job to create a game for the Wii, being inspired by Super Smash Brothers.
We had to incorporate the techniques motion-control and physics. After hours of brainstorming and numerous conceptual pitches, we came up with Grapplon!

Overview

In Grapplon, you operate a spaceship having only a grappling-hook at it's disposal, you will need to use it to both defend and attack. Throw out your hook and latch on to objects and reel them in. Then with a circular lasso-motion of the controller, lasso your object around your ship to finally let it go and send it flying.
Use this technique to reel in powerups or throw powerdowns at your enemies. Also note the gravity of all planets and use those gravitation-fields to your advantage. Space is a dangerous place, but also a usefull place. You can combust or freeze your hooked objects by swinging it close to planets that posess the wanted element.

Endresult

You can play with 2-4 players in epic spacebattles around the universe in more than 15 levels. Our game was so successfull, other projectgroups frequently visited us to play the game. I personally sucked at it, but you can't make games while you play them, right?
Our teachers and clients were VERY happy and impressed with the work and our dean also reminded us of the Independant Gamedesign Challenge held every year at the GDC and wanted us to submit Grapplon. Ambitious as I am, we are going to do this! AND WIN!!!

Role: Lead Artist + Gameconcept designer

2007

FreeRunning EXtreme January-June 2007

Concept

For our final 2nd year project, we had to work 6 months on a game on collaboration with the Technical University of Delft (TUDelft). We got to work with the Cannibal Game-Engine which functioned as an Xbox 360-devkit. Yes, you heard it: We made a game for the Xbox 360!
Our task was simple: To get our concept, we had to find news-items and connect it to a gamedesignconcept. I read about that Parcours (Freerunning) is really flourishing and I thougth about incorporating that into a game. I've never seen a freerunning game in the form of Prince of Persia meets Tony Hawk.

Overview

To be honest, the team I was assigned to didn't share the same optimism and perfectionism. Not to mention the will to actually work. But I'll leave it at that. You can all read between the lines and understand what happened.
The collaboration with the TUDelft *was* nice. For the first time ever I got the chance to work with programmers that were taught to be programmers instead of gamedesigner-who-program-a-little-on-the-side (although 2 of my friends can program really good!). Sadly, on their side of the team, they also experienced with hard to motivate classmates and it's really hard to make a fully working game with 3 people.
The engine was working as it should but because of the lacking programmers, my graphics couldn't all be implemented the way we wanted. In the end, I'm kinda happy and proud of what we did and how it went. If it didn't happen, I would have never learned so much. And I got the chance to make all the graphics of a game.

Endresult

The final products were being shown at the Microsoft Devdays 2007 and we were all very excited and a little nervous. I wasn't, because I knew we could never win. All the other teams had working games or finished trailers and all we had was a low-graphic techdemo and a bunch of graphics that couldn't be implemented. When they announced the rightfull third and second place, they were about to announce the first place and we already placed a bet on a certain team to win, but to all our surprise, FreeRunning EXtreme won!
It was a vague mixture of suprise, happyness and confusion. It was a true honor to hear from a professional gamedesigner at Microsoft that they loved my concept and that the style and graphics were unique!

Too bad we never got our prize, which was a T-shirt, a Devkit and our game on the Xbox Arcade.

Role: Well... everything really...(apart from the programming)

2006

Bodilies September-November 2006
Playsession footage of Charlotte Spencer

Click here to play Bodilies!

Concept

For the class of leveldesign, we had to make a point-and-click game just like in the 90's and pay close attention and detail to the leveldesign. After a little brainstorming, my dad asked me why I didn't do something with the human body and he began describing all these bloody levels filled with dirt and goo.
That got me thinking. What if there were aliens living inside humans and they wouldn't know that they're aliens. They would have a religion that knew of their origin, but wanted to keep it a secret in order to remain their dictorial regime as a religion. We could have an alien from another body come to the body we play in to stirr things up and let it end with another alien travelling to another body to loop the story.
I laid down this idea to my teammates and friends Roy de Groot and Jeroen Stout. Jeroen and I then began to write the gamedesign for our yet to be named game. After a little brainstorming we came on the idea of naming the aliens Bodilies, since it was all bodily.
What happened was something I had never done before and it was passing on a drawing of conceptart of a bodilie. After passing it around 3 times, we finally had a collaboration that was worthy of being finalised into the final Bodilie-design.

Overview

Bodilies is the story of Neil, a quite individual Bodilie who witnesses a rocket crash-landing on his world. Seeing the pilot being imprisoned for spreading blasphemy and lies, Neil begins to wonder. The pilot speaks of the world not being a world but in fact being one living giant (a human being), and that there are more of those giants.
Neil then begins on his journey through the entire world of the giant in search of the truth and finally trying to build a rocket to get off the world to see the truth for himself.
On his way towards the truth he makes friends and enemies, one of which is the church who dominated the world with it's dictorial regime of lies.

Endresult

Bodilies is a true adventure with lots of puzzles, loads of dialogue, an epic story and many small bits of humor. Be advised that if you are not a fan of any of these things, I do not recommend playing it. But those of you who are always interested in playing unique and original games that will suspend your disbelief in an epic quest of unvailing the truth, look no further!
Bodilies was greeted with many respect by our classmates and we were also asked to show Bodilies on the School Conference later that year. We were also featured by Dutch site Flabber.nl, JayIsGames.com and LazyLaces.

What also is cool to mention, is that the game has been played more than 50.000 times and that without us knowing, many sites have published walkthroughs, just like the old adventures "back in the days"! :D

Role: Gamedesigner, ConceptArtist, Animator + Interfacedesigner


TvBoy September 2006
Click here to play TvBoy!

Concept

TvBoy and his world was all part of the vivid imagination of friend and classmate Roy de Groot when he wanted to turn it into a cool 2d-platformer!
I worked together on this project with Roy de Groot, Paul Veer and Maarten Mol The reason why platformers were so cool back in the day of the NES, is because of the simple, yet addictive gameplay. And it still scores. That's why Roy wanted to make a genuine platformer as if it was a Gameboy-title.

Overview

TvBoy is a game about TvBoy, a boy with a tv for a head who can pull all sorts of things out of his tv-screen. In the demo, this is only limited to fists. One day when he's walking his dog, it gets stolen by an evil power who wishes to take over his world. *dun dun duuuuun*
Guide TvBoy through various levels in 3 worlds to finally destroy the evil Blacklight and his plans.

Endresult

A simple, yet very fun to play game. Not very original, but it's amusing!

Role: Leveldesigner


Tama Mari June 2006
Click here to play Tama Mari!

Concept

A game with balls! No seriously. Remember those wooden toys with marbels where you had to hold it the right way to guide your marbel through a maze filled with gaps? Well this is sort of the same, but cooler!
Again working with with friends and classmates Roy de Groot and Paul Veer, we thought of a game where we could twist the whole wooden marbel-maze thing into something even more exciting!

Overview

Tama Mari is a game where you take control of a ball and rotate the level, making sure that the bottom of the screen is always the gravitation-point. Then all you needed to do is set the angle and send your ball flying to the end of the level in one try.
A very easy concept which was easy to learn within the first level. But what is easy to learn, MUST be hard to master. And it was. But it was so much fun. This game has been downloaded 9.000 times by visitors from MickM.com and has been played a lot by classmates of us.

Endresult

Tama Mari wasn't really done. With crappy visuals weird rewards and deliverables, the game still lacks something. And we're still thinking of one day remaking this game into Flash or 3D to let people fully experience the fun of Tama Mari.

Role: Gamedesigner, Leveldesign + Interfacedesigner