Alpha Morph is a 3D space shooter, developed by the hatching disaster team, and a production of the UNCC Game Design and Development Program.
Many different responsibilities came further than the role of Lead Artist initially demanded. As an active team member of an indie team: writing of the GDD, TDD, game play mechanic design, and audio assistance were all requested demands. I was not just an artist of the team, but a key member in helping design and bring a game to life. Developed in a Skrum style environment our product could be found until 2018 on the XBox Live Indy Games Marketplace.
Alpha Morph was not only a great success for a video game production, but also a great joint collaboration effort between the College of Computing and Informatics and the College of Art+Architecture. 2 major events and collaborations resulted from Alpha Morph; a gallery exhibition first, and digital media degree track fulfillment.
As a special way to unveil the collaboration was a special gallery exhibition. The colleges came together with my team at the helm and presented the game for a weekly gallery showing for the public to enjoy. Though not a digital product the show itself is another form of user interaction and I'm proud to have helped design a great ans successful experience.
Many different areas of production, whether designing a game or making a great gallery space, took many area of creativity and understanding.
Creating a very enjoyable, stable, and successful user experience takes talents, knowledge, and skills beyond just the role of an artist can provide. Designing the game mechanics, hectic feedback, artistic theme, computing requirements; all while learning how to develop a strong team-building relationship with a new programming and development team.
A new forefront to the collaboration was the presentation to the public. The involved bring the team together and creating a new experience in the viewing gallery. Very rarely do computer science and art come together and much less so inside a gallery.
Creating immersion on a new front was a challenge but paid off greatly. We had for the time the highest attendance for a gallery opening and showing. Interest from the digital media instructors were the basis of the future collaboration projects were a large result of the show and production.
Whether it was in a game or in a gallery; an easy to navigate, easy to read, enjoyable to play, and cohesive experience was a result of hard work by many. Alpha Morph was made successfully possible through printed layout, digital design, virtual implementation, physical space exploration.
