2015 - 2024

Granify - Web Development and User Experience Design

This page includes samples of widgets assembled for display on client e-commerce sites. Special attention was paid to maximize compatibility across all major browsers, including mobile.

Each was mocked up, prototyped and built according to data-driven results from previous experimentation for maximizing conversion rate and average order values.

Widgets are compiled into a single externally loaded javascript file, assembled from individual coffeescript, CSS (SASS) and HTML files.

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Software utilized during this project:

- Adobe Photoshop

- Google Chrome Development Tools

Note: Visual artifacts, banding and dithering are a result of the gif recording process and are not present in the widgets themselves.

2010-2014

Super Motherload launched on the Playstation 4 on November 15th 2013, followed by release on Playstation 3 and Steam for PC.

The game was created by a team of 5 at XGen Studios, with art direction by Scott Carmichael. My role as an artist and designer on the project consisted of user interface design, puzzle and feature design, gameplay design, user manual art and design, video trailer recording and editing as well as quality assurance testing.

I was also responsible for obtaining content ratings including ESRB, PEGI, USK, and OFLC.

Super Motherload was released on Playstation 4 as a launch title garnering an 80/100 review from Destructoid.

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Software utilized during this project:

- Adobe Photoshop

- Adobe Premiere

- Playstation 4 SDK

- 3D Studio MAX

2008-2009

Defend Your Castle launched on the Wii through digital distribution on May 12th 2008, followed by release on iOS Devices April 20th, 2009.

Defend Your Castle WiiWare sold over 200,000 copies generating over 7-figures in revenue.

Defend Your Castle iPhone was downloaded over 1 million times.

The project features a 'sweded' style intended to resemble the cobbled items given life by a child-like imagination. This distinctive art style helped to create a unique appeal.

The game was created by a team of 4 at XGen Studios, with art direction by Taylor Schaerer. My responsibilities on the project included graphical asset handling and implementation, game design, quality assurance and video editing for marketing material. I was also in charge of adapting the graphical assets and creating an incorporated achievement system for the mobile version.

Note: I apologize for the low quality video, the Wii was incapable of displaying greater than 480p.

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Software utilized during this project:

- Adobe Photoshop

- Adobe Premiere

- Nintendo RVL SDK

2012

Blast Rage Online is a browser-based multiplayer game built in flash launched on May 9th, 2012.

The game features fast-paced realtime multiplayer dog-fighting with collectible and extremely customizeable vehicles, outfitted with hundreds of unique weapons and equipment.

Included in the slides are in-development images of the player vehicles, each designed to be customized by two full-range color selections. Also shown are the weapon icons and particles, each of which has unique sound effects, firing patterns, statistics and firing/impact animations.

The game was created by a team of 3 at XGen Studios. I was the sole artist on the team and my responsibilities on the project included digital painting, 3D modelling, UI design, game design, sound design, quality assurance and video editing for marketing material.

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Software utilized during this project:

- Adobe Photoshop

- Adobe Premiere

- Adobe Flash

- 3D Studio MAX

AMP MiniBowling is the first title from Bacon Blade Games, released on iOS and Android mobile platforms on January 19th, 2013. It features a combination of bowling and mini-golf gameplay in 3D environments and allows for asynchronous and cross-platform multiplayer matches.

The game was conceptualized and created entirely by myself and programmer Cody Hollis-Perdue using Unity3D. My responsibilities included user interface, level design, 3D modelling, texturing and sound design as well as video editing for the gameplay trailer.

We later released a pirate themed expansion pack, planning a free app distribution model using microtransactions for expanded content

AMP Minibowling is currently free in the Apple App Store and Google Play. If you like, you can give it a try.

Apple App Store

Google Play

Software utilized during this project:

- Unity3D

- 3D Studio MAX

- Adobe Photoshop

- Adobe Premiere

2009-2011

Stick RPG 2 is a browser-based comical life simulation game built in flash launched on April 19th, 2011. It has since been played over 17 million times.

The game features a vast world to explore, deep quests to solve, interesting occupational ladders to climb, a myriad of minigames and nuanced combat challenges to overcome.

The art is comprised of a hodgepodge of styles, allowing an extreme range of creative freedom. Combat areas and engine were adapted from Stick Arena, as both games exist in the same fictional universe. The static nature of the environments allowed me a lot of freedom to customize them from their original tile-based designs.

The game was created by a team of 4 at XGen Studios. My responsibilities on the project included vector illustrated buildings and environments, all mini-game art and design, combat area artwork, inventory and occupation icons, game design, quality assurance and video editing for marketing material.

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Software utilized during this project:

- Adobe Photoshop

- Adobe Illustrator

- Adobe Premiere

- Adobe Flash

- 3D Studio MAX

2005-2012

Stick Arena is a browser-based deathmatch multiplayer game built in flash first launched on May 11th, 2005 and the latest expansion, Dimensions, was released on June 11th, 2012. It has been played over 110 million times, generating over 7-figures in revenue.

All of the levels are comprised of an extremely versatile 50x50 pixel tiling system, allowing for many possible levels at a greatly reduced download size. Each tile is painstakingly designed to tile as freely as possible with other tiles even in the case of any rotation or mirroring on either axis, this creates a uniformly lit look to the levels that is very distinctive. The tiles are also available in an in-game map editor for players to use, so designing them to fit together easily and intuitively was a goal.

Some elements of the environments are entirely hand-drawn, others are 3D model renderings that have been adapted into the baked tiling system (See construction area images). Later tile sets also featured transparency with a parallax scrolling background for an increased sense of depth (See purple planetoid image).

The game was created by a team of 3 at XGen Studios. My responsibilities included primary art direction, UI design, dynamic tile creation, level design, game design, quality assurance and video editing for marketing material.

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Software utilized during this project:

- Adobe Photoshop

- Adobe Illustrator

- Adobe Premiere

- Adobe Flash

- 3D Studio MAX

2014 - Ongoing

The Low Road is an in-development game by XGenStudios Inc.

Utilizing the latest Unity3D features, I created animation controllers and animations for all characters for use during cut-scene interactions as well as programatically blended for use during player controlled segments.

Character and environmental digital painting courtesy of Scott Carmichael and XGenStudios.

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Software utilized during this project:

- Unity3D

- Adobe Photoshop

2008-2009

Boxhead Bounty Hunter is a browser-based deathmatch multiplayer game built in flash launched on November 25th, 2009. It has been played over 13 million times.

I was asked to join this project later on in the development, and tasked with completely recreating the user interface and flow, as well as redesigning a title screen.

The game was created by a team of 3 at XGen Studios. My responsibilities included designing and building user interface systems in flash for matchmaking, user chat, microtransactions, in-game shop and an innovative 'Most Wanted' interface to keep users competing for placing on a coveted list. Players are sorted by bounty, and bounty is earned by defeating other players with high bounty. The system is still encouraging active competition today.

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Software utilized during this project:

- Adobe Photoshop

- Adobe Flash

2006-2008

Pillage The Village is a browser-based game built in flash launched on August 15th, 2007. It has since been played over 5.5 million times.

Originally conceived as a prequel to the popular "Defend Your Castle" game, the premise of the game attempts to answer the question of why the people decided to attack your castle.

The game features directly interactive settings allowing the player to terrorize a village by tossing houses around and attempting to ensure that there are no survivors of the massacre in comical macabre fashion.

The game was created by a team of 3 at XGen Studios. Character artwork was done by Taylor Schaerer. My responsibilities on the project included environmental design, UI design, title design, special effects, game design, quality assurance and video editing for marketing material.

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Software utilized during this project:

- Adobe Photoshop

- Adobe Premiere

- Adobe Flash

2010

Early on in the production of Super Motherload, the scope for the project was smaller and we elected to use an art style much closer to that of the original game. Seeing potential in a clean and entirely different new art style, the team elected to completely re-imagine the game world using a unique style conceptualized by Scott Carmichael instead.

The work seen here was eventually discarded and I still hold an appreciation for what the game may have looked like.

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Software utilized during this project:

- Adobe Photoshop

- 3D Studio MAX

2009

A collaboration between the concept work of Scott Carmichael and my experience 3D modelling, texturing and rigging. It was designed to be very low-poly, targeting the best 3D capabilities of the mobile platforms at the time. Originally created for asset pipeline testing for a sequel to Defend Your Castle, the project was eventually scrapped.

Attached is a video demonstrating the rig playing backed a motion captured animation. Please excuse the potato-level quality.

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Software utilized during this project:

- 3D Studio MAX

- Adobe Photoshop

2014

Experimentations using Sprite Lamp, software created by Snake Hill Games for lighting 2D bitmap images using generated normal maps. The design is attempting to build an entire game using pixel art graphics, but dynamically and three dimensionally lit in a realtime graphics engine. This art style has not been attempted before.

You can see the diffuse map characters on the top, created with no shading. Underneath is the result of hand-creating multiple lighting maps and using them to create a normal map which then solves for the dynamic light. Lastly, there is a diagram explaining the planned 3D space of the game which will be responsible for generating the orthographic view that the player is presented with.

2014

Part of an ongoing freelance art project, these cars are stylized interpretations of real vehicles using reference photos provided by the client.

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Software utilized during this project:

- Adobe Photoshop

- Adobe Illustrator

2010-2015

Another of my hobbies is photo manipulation and enhancement using Adobe Photoshop.

Thanks go out to my nieces and nephew for being so unbelievably cute.

2012-2014

Macro photography is a hobby of mine. I love to see the world from a fresh angle and explore details that are normally too tiny to notice.

Here's a little collection of the best that I've managed to capture.

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Software utilized during this project:

- Adobe Photoshop

2010-2012

After two years and 47,096 beads, my girlfriend and I finished this tribute to my favorite game of all time.

In the comparison shot, you can see the plan. The left image is captured from the game and the right image is the result of converting all of the colors into the available palette of perler beads. The conversion and bead counting was done by a Python script written by my awesome programmer friend Cody Hollis-Perdue. I then acquired the ~52,000 necessary beads from a wholesaler through the internet.

It took around an hour of assembly per panel. 7 x 8 panels total, 29x29 beads per panel. A hand iron was used to meticulously melt the panels together. The final melt is by no means perfect, the plastic has a tendency to shrink and swell based on the color. Melting temperature varied by color of bead. The final mounted product measures 44" x 39".

Special thanks to my girlfriend Nicole for helping me assemble all of the panels, probably close to 170 hours between the two of us. Thanks to Cody for writing me scripts that convert and count bead colors. Thanks to Scott for his expertise and physical labor in helping to mount the final melted panels.

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Software utilized during this project:

- Adobe Photoshop

- Python

Aspects of myself lost during this project:

- Finger Cartilage

- Sanity