Avian is a cooperative multiplayer game with collaboration, conservation, and altruism at its core. Engage in multiple modes of play such as negotiation puzzler and a fast-paced race as you help your community thrive.
In terms of narrative, Avian promotes the player to improve and expand the world by completing mini-games and earning rewards. As they progress through the game, they not only rejuvenate the individual islands they visit but they also are able to personalise and customise the central island that is their home. Through player interaction, they will observe how their actions can have a positive effect on the world. Avian is still in early development, but the long term goal is for players to visit and build up their friend’s islands through collaborative mini-games and adventures. Actions like these would promote altruistic behave, used to cultivate the environment, and strengthen friendships.
The core concept for Avian originated from a mathematical formula that generates game scenarios that support up to 30 players. The scenarios involve different cities, which must establish connections between each other at a reasonable cost. The team took the mathematical problem from its paper form and aimed to make a digital version, to be used for university-level education on game theory. We applied for funding of an MVP and that led to our first major success. We were awarded the maximum amount possible by the committee, which kickstarted our journey. The team then went onto another round of funding to keep developing the project and accomplish our long-term vision. This marked our second major success, as we were awarded the maximum possible funding to increase the size of the team and push the work further. The project was praised as innovative and exiting,.
Gameplay Video
Below you can find a snippet of what the gameplay is like. Avian is still in production and is prone to changes.
Environment Design
The environment in Avian is one of its selling points, at the core of each level is a vibrant, colourful landscape, that the player glides around, saving and restoring it any way they can! I had the pleasure of working with a talented team, capable of bringing this world to life! As one of the core 3D artists, I was able to get hands-on experience designing and creating assets and scenes centre stage of the game. The collaboration of assets from my colleagues, and assets I created, allowed for a heavily detailed environment to grow. Keeping with themes of conservationism and collaboration, the player helps to rejuvenate and maintain the islands, keeping them in a state of vibrant colour.
Character Design
I had a lot of creative freedom and control over creating characters in the game. I started this work by producing concept art of both playable characters as well as background characters. It was a great experience being able to steer the direction for character design, prior to this project, my only experience with character modelling was the low poly characters that I created for my university final year project Jazz and Azul. It was therefore a perfect chance to refine and learn new skills such as sculpting and retopologizing. Besides characters, I was also able to design an array of fantasy animals that would inhabit the world. Currently, neon macaws and fantasy foxes have been modelled, rigged, animated and added to the game, hopefully. More animals will later roam around the islands and the skies, to make the world feel more alive!
Below you can find examples of my concept art for characters, as well as the models I created based on them.
Texturing
basic stuff about texturing, loved being able to do both 2D and 3D art,
