Pollen Nation
Role: Artist, Game Design, Co-production
Duration: 3 Weeks
Platform: HTC VIVE + Xbox Controllers
Design Challenge: Engagement, Re-playability
Tools: Autodesk Maya, Unity, Substance Painter, Perforce
Pollen Nation is an asymmetrical Virtual Reality- PC game designed at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center with a team of five members.
Personal Contributions
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Co-designed game mechanics interdisciplinary team of artists, programmers and a sound designer
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Designed the environment, characters, and overall look of the game
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Modeled, textured, rigged and animated the characters, set up the environment in Unity with lighting and particle systems
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Coordinated team activities throughout the entire process
Game Design
Pollen Nation is the Kentucky Derby of the Bug world. A Praying Mantis played by a guest wearing a VR headset takes on three Bees controlled by three guests with Xbox controllers in a Bug sports arena. The arena has four large Flowers, of which the bees must pollinate three to completely win. The Mantis must prevent that from happening. At the Mantis' disposal are magical Seeds that he may throw at the Bees to slow them down. What's more? When the Seeds hit the ground, they turn into Venus Flytraps that can be used to trap the Bees. Bees must work together to save each other from the Mantis' traps and pollinate all flowers before time runs out!
Environment
The environment is designed as a circular arena intended to be viewed both from the center in Virtual Reality and from the top on PC. For the arena, I created multiple modulars in Maya and then set them up in Unity with lighting.
Characters
The two main characters types are a praying mantis and a bee. The characters were made to look appealing, consistent and easily modifiable to create different individual characters from the same models.
