Projects | Jianna Shao

01

Game Design Projects

A collection of illustrated assets and animated sprites for Sunpuddle, a Construct3-made visual-focused game project done solo.

Part I

Sunpuddle

Context

Sunpuddle was my first solo endeavor when it came to game design, and I imagined a cozy farming game (a bit like Stardew Valley) but with more character interaction features and a painted storybook feeling. The assets were drawn in CSP while the game engine used was Construct3 due to its superior handling of graphics and maniupulating visual effects.

Process

Since it was an open world, lots of assets were needed to fill all the space and the different items and furniture had to be interactable too! From dandelion plants that released seeds, to crop planting mechanisms and fishing minigames everything had to individually painted and coded into the game.

Takeaway

The project was never completed or finished both because of the huge time committment it required that I couldn't keep up with as a student and also the fact that my illustration skills and style had improved so drastically throughout the project so much that in order for the entire project to be cohesive I would have had to go back to redraw a lot of assets which didn't seeem worth doing. These two reasons in combination made for the retirement of this project.

Part II

Sketchy Secret

A promotional video, character animation, and gameplay scenes developed for Sketchy Secret, a Godot-based collaborative project done with Nadine McMahon (a student at USC).

Sketchy Secret is a mystery game that follows the detective Bri as she looks for the missing artists. It turns out that they are trapped inside their own artwork, and she has to explore the world's they've imagined up in order to find the root of their problems that got them trapped in the first place. The first level (out of three) of the game was compeleted and test-runned, but the rest of the game was never completed as my game development partner and I went to different universities. We hope to pick up and complete the project someday.

02

Withdrawn Pandemonium

A solo art exhibition featuring eight of my original art pieces I curated for cohesive narrative experiences.

I received this opportunity by submitting a proposal for a solo art exhibition to a committee, where my proposal was reviewed and accepted so that I could begin installing. The exhibition was promoted through flyers and emails and was up for four months.

The exhibition was also photographed and saved in the library's digital archives, preserving its presence for future generations.