What I've Been Up To:

UWAJIMAYA BAG DESIGN:

This one is a little old, but a couple months ago, Uwajimaya held a bag design contest. The winner would have their design printed and sold as an Uwajimaya grocery tote and $1000 in gift cards to their stores (which would buy a ton of potstickers!). To stay with the theme of the other previous bag designs, I wanted mine very colorful and full of food. I successfully made the top 32, but another winner was chosen. I can't wait to find out what the winning design looked like! I designed mine to encompass a large feast, one with primarily Asian foods (it was for an Asian grocery store anyways). The recipient tasked with eating this feast, was a cartoonified version of an octopus base loosely on the details of the octopus from, "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" painting.




PAX2010:

This marks my third year attending PAX and my first as a professional artist. While it was difficult to get away from the freeplay areas and dungeon delves, I still managed to test many games and talk to local developers.

SKULLS OF THE SHOGUN by HAUNTED TEMPLE GAMES:



I have mostly avoided turn-based strategy games because of their complexity such as Starcraft and Civilization. Thank goodness for the developers at Haunter Temple Games for creating Skulls of the Shogun as a more casual type. As a player, you are trying to kill the other players Shogun, since that determines the winner. The gameplay follows the usual pattern of gather resources, allocate troops, battle and upgrades. The most unique feature is the way in which you upgrade your troops and Shogun: eating the skulls of defeated enemies to become a demon. I love it: the feudal Japan environments and characters, casual, yet solid gameplay and the unique interpretation of the basics of turn based strategy (to capture resources a character must 'haunt' that area, and the animation of an undead cavalry man chanting Japanese characters is awesome!).


BASTION by SUPERGIANT GAMES:



A painterly single-player rpg game? Oh god, yes please! And what's that? You have art and assets created by one of my favorite artists: Jen Zee, who worked on Gaia Online?!I unfortunately, didn't get a chance to play (darn the media and press for crowding up the booth ;) ), but I stood and watched for a while, getting the sense of gameplay. I especially enjoyed the narrator- an old Western cowboy-type sounding voice explaining the current state of the world, your role in saving existence and artfully describing the way in which you interact with the game. I can't wait for Bastion's release however they have yet to announce if it'll be a console or PC title.

TORCHLIGHT II by RUNIC:



Whether they still plan to make Torchlight into a MMO is now no longer a concern of mine because there was a somewhat unified voice of fans who screamed, "We love your game! Can we have it as a multiplayer please?!" Since many of my friends and I in Seattle talked about this constantly, word must have reached Runic's ears, and out of nowhere, Torchlight II! They previewed two new classes at PAX: one I can't remember, but the other was The Railer. His abilities involve wielding a large melee weapon and after a number of a attacks would develop 'charges' that followed him around. When a Railer gets knee-deep in enemies, he lights off a charge to use a special attack, which works as a blast damage exploding from the weapon's attack. Runic has also added ways to customize your character (hair, face, color). But again, the co-op multiplayer is really what makes this game shine (well and all that was amazing about the first one- progressive story line, painterly graphics).

Special Mention- FRUIT NINJA by HALFBRICK:



This game makes me want an iPad. It was the only game for the iPad with the most simplistic rules: slice fruit, don't slice bombs. Again, another painterly (seeing a pattern with games I like?) game with 1st person or versus mode. And just as the picture suggests, it is very addicting. By slicing fruit you can unlock new backgrounds (my favorite so far is the famous Hokusai wood block print of the waves), new slicing weapons and different game modes. The developer I talked to explained that this game was perfect to play during a commercial break; however realizing you played right through the end of your hour-long program has been known to happen frequently.