˚⊹ Welcome to Daisy's Dimensional Portfolio ⊹˚

Sweet Life is a collaboration between Saint Rodriguez Ordaz, Sophia McClanahan, and I. While it uses a Kenney 3D First Person Shooter source code for Godot as its base, edits and implementation of the members’ work for cohesiveness were done by me. My work in the game consists mainly of character creation (using both 3D modeling and digital painting), game level design, dialogue and audio implementation, title and end screen implementation, and programming, while editing and playtesting throughout. I essentially worked on and edited every part of the game that wasn’t originally provided in the FPS template.

The idea for Sweet Life emerged as an experiment for creating a game in a genre that none of the collaborators had ever attempted before–that is, a shooting game. In particular, we wanted to create a non-typical first person shooter that was more narrative-based and cute than the usual somewhat gory, battle-oriented, shoot-and-kill-for-points games in the market. Having offered the idea, I had also wanted to try using some of my Blender and coding skills to create my first 3D game that utilized more technical programming. Overall, Sweet Life is one of the more technically difficult games that I have made that shows off a variety of my skills both as an artist and as a programmer that aspires to make games that may introduce non-gamers to gaming.

Ambrosia is a collaborative effort between Justin Tang and I. I managed the production for the three characters Ula, Ronen, and Borghildr, including the narrative paths and dialogue, the sprites (using digital painting), and the programming code in Ren’Py. I also found most of the images used as the backgrounds, and came up with the title of the game. From the beginning to the end, I edited and playtested the game to make sure all six paths were cohesive and reasonable. However, the game is incomplete, with the vampire Lord Ambrose still lacking sprites.

Ambrosia was the first consistent multi-media game that I produced, having wished to gain more experience creating games that relied more on visuals than the text-based games I had worked on prior. Although dating simulators were something that neither Justin nor I had ever created, the idea of making one with queer supernatural characters was appealing, especially if the characters greatly varied in form, personality, and identity. We also thought it would be unique of a dating simulator to have characters the player couldn’t date, for inclusivity of aromantic or asexual players. It is for this reason that there are three dateable characters with longer paths, and three non-dateable characters with short stories. While still incomplete, Ambrosia is my biggest game with a center on queer identity, produced for an audience that varies more than that of dating simulators with an all-male or all-female cast.

Dragon Adoption is a game created in the retro Game Boy pixel style. While it uses the sample project template provided by GB Studio as its base, I was the one who made edits to the script and created several assets. My most prominent work in the game includes narrative production, sprite/character creations (using digital painting), color palette creations, dialogue and variable implementations, and programming, while editing and playtesting throughout. Even the sample backgrounds had their colors and/or inclusions changed to match the game’s concept. I edited much of the initial backgrounds and NPCs to create a game more fitted to my narrative.

The concept of Dragon Adoption actually hadn’t been established when I created its first aspect–an animated dragon sprite. After messing around with the color palette limitations of GB Studio and creating multiple generic dragon designs, I was finally inspired by the many dragon characters I liked, and created simple imitations of them. It was my love for the characters that inspired the game’s adoption concept, as I wanted to share the joy of having dragon companions that stayed by one’s side, through all the highs and lows that inevitably come with life. Dragon Adoption is the first game with all of its complicated programming and major art designs that I did on my own, and it is a game that hopes to convey feelings of simple joy, love, and support.

Grubby’s Garden is a collaboration between Serene Wong, Dylan Boyle, Isabell Lin, Ailish Smith, Julius Gomez, and I. The entire website was created using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, alongside digital art assets. My contributions to this project includes both the digital art (particularly those of the loading screens, various Grubby assets, and the back button) and programming (the loading screens, overview/instruction pages, back button, and the credits page). I also inserted the background and made it so that it wouldn’t scroll with the mouse movement nor section expansions. Although my official position was as one of the artists, I also worked on editing and providing the code for the site wherever I could, and eventually worked on pretty much every page in some small (little layout tweaks) or big aspect (entire page formations).

The idea for Grubby’s Garden was a cute, calming, and helpful interactive website for the purpose of journaling and sorting through one’s emotions; the user would identify the emotions they felt throughout the day and log them into the website in order to make plants grow (although the growth itself is glitchy). The group members all thought that it’d be a unique combination of chia pets, tamagotchis, digital journaling, and random facts, the combination of which would hopefully keep the user engaged and consistently logging in to use the site. Grubby’s Garden is my first website completely designed from scratch, both in regards to art and programming. The website is an example of my venture outside of video game programming into HTML, CSS, and JS to show off a different set of programming skills, although the interactive and consistent audience characteristics is still prevalent.

Haru is a 3D modeled character made from scratch on Blender. After creating the character concept with digital painting, I took the front and side perspective images to Blender as references to build the model. Using cylinders, vertex extrusions, various modifiers (e.g., mirror, subdivision, and solidify), sculpting, retopology, and nurbs paths beveled by bézier circles, I built the base 3D character. I then UV unwrapped the body and clothes and added texture and colors on Adobe Substance Painter to create the final model. After inserting the armature and weight painting the clothing, I created a run animation using the 12 principles of animation and keyframing. From the character design to the 3D model to the animation, Haru is entirely my creation.

Haru’s concept comes from a character that has existed for years in my imagination (a sort of grim reaper), although with a few alterations to account for the limited time and Blender skills I had to complete the project. As it was my first time creating a full-bodied, rigged character, there are some aspects to Haru that can be better adjusted (such as the weighting on the cloak, which would’ve worked better with bones)–however, it is still one of my better examples of 3D models in regards to detailing and accuracy. Haru is a somewhat personal character brought to life, made to represent my step into the 3D modeling world. They show the base skills I have in creating 3D models, rigging, and animating for export into other projects, which will only get better with experience and more time.