Game Projects
Hello! ♡
These are some of the projects I've worked on over the past 4 years. Click "more" if you'd like to know about my specific contributions and experiences working on each game!
Creative Director
Fight monsters, save the kingdom, and... Fall in love? A co-op side-scrolling beat-em-up about two girls trying to find balance between duty and self.
UI Artist & Illustrator
Wood Joints Cafe is a 3D puzzle game based on mortise and tenon joints.
In this game, the player will match wood pieces together with corresponding joint types, and the story plot will be unlocked after completing levels.
In Eletopia, you play as a manager!
These workers will follow your every command.
Make them work hard, and you’ll make Eletopia the tallest building in the world!
Bìxié
I worked on this game as the Creative Director, UI Artist, and Illustrator. My goal for this game's art direction was to evoke contrasting feelings between peaceful watercolor and harsh calligraphy lines.
Illustrations depicting the First Princess are heavily inked with messy black lines. Although the Princess saved the kingdom, it shows of a darkness that underlies the lantern lighting ritual. Illustrations of Mei Lien and Qinyang are brightly colored in contrast; their journey is one of hope that a new path can be forged.
I began concepting Bìxié in 2019, starting with Qinyang's design. I knew I wanted her to be based on lion-dancing, and I wanted her to have a dragon-dancing lover.
The story came after the characters were concepted, which I wanted to be based on my own experience being Chinese-American. Mei Lien and Qinyang's main struggle is balancing between duty and self; Chinese tradition focuses on putting the community before yourself, while American society urges you to always put yourself first. Bìxié aims to find a middle-ground between the two ideas.
The color red holds a lot of symbolic importance to the story. To Western audiences, the color red symbolizes danger — fire, blood, anger. The kingdom forcing princesses to sacrifice themselves to the ritual is seen as evil, as a violation of freedom. But to Eastern audiences, the color red symbolizes prosperity — warmth, vitality, happiness. The princess sacrificing her life for the good of her people is seen as a selfless, heroic act; it is something she should be celebrated for.
Depending on which lens you view the story, you may have conflicting feelings about the ritual. However, as a Chinese person born in America, I hope to balance these two societal expectations. The ending in which Mei Lien and Qinyang light the final lantern together is my way of finding compromise — you must protect and love your community, but you also should not bear the burden of it alone. You, too, are part of the community, and therefore you must learn to cherish your own feelings as well. The two are able to complete their duty of protecting the kingdom from darkness, and they also fulfill their own desires of companionship.
Wood Joints Cafe
I was invited to work on Wood Joints Cafe by graduate student Yulin Cai after she had seen my UI work on Eletopia. She really enjoyed the silly hand-painted style of UI I did, and she reached out to me to begin working over the summer.
Yulin's creative vision was a cozy cafe-themed game that would teach students spatial awareness through wood joints. Thus, I began concepting things that I felt were cozy: old wooden boards, foliage, stationery, and bears. The team immediately fell in love with the bear-themed UI, and we even ended up making the protagonist a bear!
I was invited to work on Wood Joints Cafe by graduate student Yulin Cai after she had seen my UI work on Eletopia. She really enjoyed the silly hand-painted style of UI I did, and she reached out to me to begin working over the summer.
Yulin's creative vision was a cozy cafe-themed game that would teach students spatial awareness through wood joints. Thus, I began concepting things that I felt were cozy: old wooden boards, foliage, stationery, and bears. The team immediately fell in love with the bear-themed UI, and we even ended up making the protagonist a bear!
Eletopia
I began working on Eletopia with the intention of being a character designer; however, I soon found myself in the position of UI artist as well.
I initially concepted a bunch of different animal characters with diverse body types and fashion styles, but we ended up having to limit the designs greatly due to scope cuts. Once the 3D modelers and animators felt more comfortable with their roles, we were able to be more ambitious with the designs again.
This was my first time working on a group project as a UI artist, and I really enjoyed the designing process. We had to go through many design iterations for the elevator part of the game, but we eventually settled on making all the UI a flat 2D instead of trying to mix 2D with 3D.
My favorite part of the design process is figuring out how far I can push the wacky animal UI. Instead of having a simple toolbox menu, why not have a frog holding all the options in his mouth? Instead of a normal building for a logo, why not make the building a giant fish? I absolutely love making themed UI elements now, and I'm excited to see what I'll make next.