

Người Lạ
'Người Lạ' is a single-player, cinematic, Visual Novel created for Game Studio 2 as a semester long project. You play as professional e-sports player Tien, who moves to Ho Chi Minh city with her brother Duc in preparation for an upcoming speed-runner tournament.







Team Size: 5
Role: Game Designer | 3D Artist
Dev Time: 4 months
Published: May 27, 2020
OVERVIEW
DEVELOPMENT
Early on it was decided that going 3D would be the most efficient medium for visual development. My extensive experience with low-poly organic modeling put me in charge of designing the main characters of the game. The team wanted a visual look that was simple for fast iteration, but flexible enough to express a wide range of emotions and atmosphere. I researched games such as 'Wide Ocean, Big Jacket' for their use of shape, color, and lighting to tell an impactful story with simple assets. I developed a low-poly style simple that utilized flat color gradients for shading that gave the illusion of depth, yet it was simple enough that you can easily adjust the colors of the models by way of post-processing and real-time light placements. Hand drawn textures in areas such as the face to provide an additional layer of detail and personality to the characters.
Briefly, I was tasked with creating storyboards because we planned for cinematic cutscenes. It was scrapped early on in development due to the scope of the project and we didn't have enough time to implement that feature. It wasn't completely wasted work however- the storyboards helped the writers better understand Duc and Tiens character dynamics and solidified the layout of their apartment.


POST MORTEM
This was the first game I worked on that involved a large team and was met with public feedback. It was met with positive reception with many viewers doing Let's Plays and even giving us donations. My experience working on this game has better prepared me for future projects of this scope.