Magic Realm (Light 30)

Howdy everyone!

Magic Realm (Light 30)

The game I chose for this assignment is a shortened, single-player PnP version of a game called Magic Realm, which is, essentially, a mini version of DnD. The game consists of making your own map, character, adventures, and more. The goal of this version of Magic Realm is that it's a "Light" introductory version into the main Magic Realm game, that can be done in (supposedly) 30 minutes, or units of time. Thus, 'Light 30'.

The big, overall goal of a game is to survive for 14 'days' (21 if you want it to go longer!), and to receive treasure, gold, and followers. Again, this game is more or less a simplified version of a bigger version of this game, on top of it being playable by one person in, supposedly, 30 minutes.

The core mechanics for this game involve rolling one, sometimes two, d6 die. There is also an extensive checklist that you must use in order to keep track of abilities, npcs, monsters, combat, equipment, and more.

The 'map', with an eyeball denoting my character.

The space of the game is determined mostly by the person who wishes to play, as the map you draw is of your own creation, only bound by one rule, which is that each zone must be adjacent to two other zones. The other requirements is that there must be one village zone, where you start, two mountain zones, two cave zones, and one forest zone. There is also one large road that you must add, which must pass through every single zone.

There is a MASSIVE amount of objects and attributes that a player can have on their character, and honestly, it's very overwhelming. The rules themselves are very convoluted and hard to understand as is, as there is never really an outright stated 'start' to the game. Even with examples, trying to follow along with just starting your character sheet is ridiculously difficult. There are four 'states' that you are in as you play the game as well. The 'Birdsong Phase', which means you plan your moves for that 'day'. The 'Daylight Phase', where performing actions occur such as being blocked by denizens, monster rolls, and spawning monsters. The 'Evening Phase' which is combat with aforementioned monsters or even denizens, and lastly the 'Midnight Phase', which is when it all resets, or if it's the 14th day, the game ends.

The massive amount of items, spells, etc.

These phases are massively complicated, and on top of that, the combat makes absolutely no sense to me, personally. Merely attempting twice to understand how the combat worked was enough to make me give up trying to understand it. The instructions for these phases aren't very well organized, as well as the actual combat system being very cloudy with explanations, and poorly displayed 'guides' to assist you. To add onto the game's weird complexity, there is a 'chit' system, where you can apparently only move a certain way if you have certain chits, and they can become fatigued or wounded, which if all of your chits are wounded or fatigued, you lose. There's also a mechanic called "effort asterisk", which make a single chit cost more.

THE COMBAT..

Your only operative actions are rolling the dice, deciding where to move, and choosing certain aspects of the game should you roll the appropriate numbers. You can chose to locate, peer, or do other actions in your planning stage such as hiding (which you need to roll below 6 in order to successfully hide), moving, searching, trading, resting, hiring, and enchanting.

The Resultant actions you would want to take is the appropriate planning in order to ensure you don't lose your chits, too much gold, fame, or friendly denizens.

The biggest issue I, personally, have with the rules of this game is that they are so needlessly complicated, that it would take you days to even begin to understand how this game even remotely functions. They are slightly out of order of importance, telling you important information after you've already done something else, causing you to have to re-roll or re-write whatever it was you had to do. The diagrams offered to explain the rules of the combat system also do not make any sense, as many things in this game are denoted by shortened little versions of the names of certain things, and there is a lot of overlap between shortened versions of names.

I assume after someone managed to work out how to start the game, you would learn micromanagement skills with keeping track of all of your statuses, chits, allies, locations, gold, so on and so forth. I say assume as I still, personally, have not figured out how this game works, though that may be because I have a lot of trouble understanding very complicated pages of rules. (I'm very visually oriented.)

Chance is a huge aspect of this game, as you want to aim for having the lowest rolls possible (snake eyes is one of the best rolls you can get in the game, as well as just single ones), so there's a lot of chances that you'll simply keep failing your rolls by rolling 6's or above, end up dying, and lose the game. The chance system is about the only thing, other than picking a class for your character, that I could really understand with this game.

Micropul;

tile game where you have to basically stack together the same ones of the right color; A little confusing but not too bad once you get into it. a very quick game for the most part, lots of options for customizing the tiles (paper, wood, etc); played online version for short while to see if we would enjoy it-- didnt enjoy it.

drawing from the 'core' in micropul is the only way to get new tiles, interesting mechanics.

Witch Hunt:

a very fun little 'hidden role' game, very well made little cards and easier to understand rules than micropul; clearly written out objectives and cards, without really confusing 'drain' mechanics. scaling of card-dealing goes up/down with amount of people, very short game but fun
after first round you can choose to become a witch or not, adding an interesting element to the game

Secret Hitler;

a lot like Witch Hunt, secret hidden role game. Couldn't actually play because while the board/cards were print/play, the rules pdf link was broken :(

Game we ended up playing: Witch Hunt
as described before its a hidden role game
general consensus is that it would be fun with a lot more different cards and more people
some cards kind of had  same-ey effect

A quick interview with Fanny Vergne.

Here's the interview I did with Fanny Vergne! A huge thank you to her for taking the time to respond to my questions.

1. What does your role usually entail in the industry?I'm currently employed as a 3D artist so my role is to create 3d models and textures to apply on them.

2. What is your usual time frame for doing a project? Does it ever feel too short, too long?It's a tricky question because I got assigned a lot of different projects.
This could go from being assigned to do just one or few textures to do an entire dungeon or raid. 
For one texture I usually take one or two days, sometimes more if it's a complicated one, like a boss floor. For one building, I can take one or two weeks regarding the complexity, and for a dungeon it can take months (4-6months).
Sometimes it does feels too short, especially at the end of the game production, because you don't have that much time to polish and you have to wrap up everything; and sometimes, after months spent on the same project it starts to feel redundant but it's always really rewarding to see players enjoying your work. Especially when it's dungeons or raids, because you can share with them literally several months of your lifetime!

3. How long have you been working as a texture artist? I've always been employed as 3d modeling artist and texture artist at the same time and I started to work at Ubisoft six years ago (2008).

4. Are you often required to step outside of the role of texture artist? Like, you have to sculpt or model something?Like I said previously, I'm kind of a hybrid and I usually ask to do modeling and texturing at the same time if it's possible because I really enjoy the full pipeline of the environment creation. Since I use Zbrush sometimes to create my textures, I'm able to use a wide variety of techniques ( 3d modeling, sculpting and painting). I always thought that what you can learn about one technique can help you learn something else in another one.

5. Do you always have fun wherever you're working?Yes ! I rarely get bored or annoyed. I'm truly passionate about art since I'm a kid and I need to create art almost in my daily basis. I think sometimes young artists can easily forget to have fun when they are creating something and focus more their attention on what they think people would like to see or how many likes they can get on social media. It took me several years to realize that what truly matters is to have fun ! If what you are making makes you truly happy, then people are going to see that in your work and you will be more willing to overcome challenges.

6. Does your role in the industry often foster creativity?Yes and I would say it's a requirement for being a happy artist if you are really passionate. I know that at the beginning of an art career we don't necessary have the luxury to choose our dream company but being creative is what is going to make you happy and become a good artist. It's important to always try to put your creativity in everything you are making, even if the game/project doesn't appeal to you at first or whatever reason.

7. Do you ever get "burned out" from working on something?Even if you are passionate sometimes you can be burned out.
Letting your brain breath (and your legs move !) is extremely important.
Without resting, your creativity usually decreases over time. Also having the possibility to come back after few hours / days on a project, gives you the opportunity to look at it with " fresh eyes" and see things that you might do differently than previously. You also have the time to mature ideas about your project during the resting time.

8. How often do you look at the work of other people in your field?Every day ! It is so important ! And not just in my field ! (Artstation, Polycount, Zbrushcentral , teammates, friends …)
I improved a lot just by looking at what other people were making. I realized that it is really important to create what I call a "mental library", because when you’re going back creating your art, your brain will remember some parts of other works that really appealed to you. It's almost unconscious but the improvement is really real. Also, don't hesitate to use references if you are out of your comfort zone, even photos !

9. Do your colleagues and peers share work and processes often with each other, or is it rather contained?

I’d say it depends of the personality that each artist has. Some people prefer to learn from tutorials or forums online and some people really like to share directly with their team mates. It usually depends how introvert or extrovert you are. But usually the industry pushes people to share their knowledge and people even propose to do classes sometimes to share their process. But ultimately, it’s something that you have to do by yourself. If you are really craving for knowledge, you will always find a way to learn more ! ( asking people, looking online, trying by yourself etc etc…)

10. Last but not least, how often do you do large, collaborative projects?If you want to work in the video game industry, you will always work on collaborative projects. Because games are exactly that : large collaborative projects.
Even if you are the only artist on the project you will have to collaborate with game designers, level designers, programmers, technical artists, sound designers, marketing etc etc ……


I hope you will find that useful. English is not my native language so don’t hesitate to correct some words or expressions if you think it would be better ! :)

Game Design - Presentation

https://docs.google.com/a/c.ringling.edu/presentation/d/1AlantipgTO3v3AaF96y1T3qEWePPmFnku07sN3F_ucY/edit?usp=sharing

3D Plant Concept (final)

plant environment; concept

for 3D class

Cryofreeze

A finished piece for my Changing Cultures class.

Cam C - Domicile (All works in progress!)

The final submitted image for the assignment, showing all of the process between sketching, testing various lighting scenarios, and color tests.

Cam C - Domicile Assignment (Drawing 2; Freshman Year)

This is the final image of one of my final assignments for Drawing 2 with Aaron Board at Ringling. This assignment was very challenging as getting the perspective on the pipe and also the lighting was very difficult for me to understand, but I eventually got it! I spent upwards of a week on this piece alone.