aliciazhen

[aliciazhen]

Love & Other Monsters

Apr. 4 — Present

Producer, Character Designer & UI Artist

About the Game

A lesbian dating sim, based in the Victorian-era!

Synopsis: Upon the death of her father, “Victoria Morgan” is summoned back to their family’s illustrious mansion in Castelonia, in order to claim her inheritance. When she arrives, she discovers that her father had died more than a year ago. Embark on a mystery to uncover the truth of what happened on the night of your father’s death, and discover the secrets you’ve inherited… Play here!

Role: Producer, Character Designer & UI Artist Duration: 10 Weeks Team Size: 8

Contributions

Managed a multidisciplinary team of 8, where I rallied the team under a shared vision and plan, and provided structure and support that would help the team meet deadlines on time.

Concepted & designed user interfaces, menus, characters, world designs, landscapes, maps, buildings, etc.

Supported programmers in implementing game assets & visual elements into the game.

Collaborated with the Lead Character Artist to establish the visual style of our game, by researching historic information on Victorian-era elements, creating mood boards, art style guides, and design documents.

Organized, planned & facilitated bi-weekly scrum meetings, and documented meeting notes.

My Art

Love & Other Monsters Thumbnail

Title Screen

Interactive Map: Map of Castelonia

Baroque Portrait Frames & Dialgoue Box

Character Design: Freya

Character Design: Freya (Concept Art)

UI Design (Mock-up)

Game Screenshots

#victorian era #visual novel #dating sim #victorian #Youtube

[aliciazhen]

Otter Underwotter

Jan. 9 — Mar. 17, 2023

Producer, 2D Artist & Animator

About the Game

A parallax scrolling, bullet-hell game! You're enjoying the sunset with your Significant Otter... until they suddenly get dragged beneath the waves, and towards the bottomless ocean! It's up to you to dive underwotter, and save them! Play here!

Game Trailer by Alicia Zhen

Role: Producer, 2D Artist & Animator Duration: 10 Weeks Team Size: 8

Contributions

Rallied the team under a shared vision & plan, and provided structure and support that would help the team meet deadlines in a timely manner.

Organized bi-weekly meeting plans & goals, facilitated scrum meetings via Discord, and documented meeting notes via Google Docs.

Tracked & updated the progress of our sprints, created lists of actionable items based on our backlog, and drove relevant assigned tasks.

Collaborated with the artist team to establish the visual style of our game, by creating mood boards, art style guides, and design documents with Google Docs & Slides.

Organized playtests, extracted information and feedback, identified bugs, and wrote reports to improve player experiences.

Produced, scripted, and edited the game trailer with Adobe Premiere Pro.

My Art

Title Screen

UI Design & Layout

Otter Animation

Sunlight Zone

Twilight Zone

Enemy Designs & Concept Art

Screenshots

Sunlight Zone

Twilight Zone

Abyss Zone

#bullet hell #indie games #shoot em up #otter

[aliciazhen]

Kingdoms of Aivrath

Nov. 14 — Dec. 2, 2022

Producer, Character Designer & Writer

About the Game

A turn-based strategy RPG!

On the continent of Aivrath, two large rivaling empires are at the brink of war. The outcome of their first battle will indefinitely set the tone for the rest of the continent... and reveal which empire is most advantageous.

While the Empire of Orane has teamed up with some friends in the Outer Territories, including the Xulu Tribe, and Verna Empire only have themselves to depend on.

Who will the first victory go to? Play here!

Role: Producer, Character Designer & Writer Duration: 3 weeks Team Size: 7

Contributions

Concepted, designed, and wrote the game world, character design documents & character dialogues to communicate the game's story with the rest of the team, and to support gameplay mechanics and the game's overall vision.

Collaborated with another artist to establish the visual style of our game, by creating mood boards, art style guides, and design documents.

Oversaw & supported programmers in implementing game assets & visual elements into the game.

Organized, planned & facilitated daily standups & weekly scrum meetings to track progress & drive actionable tasks, and documented meeting notes.

Defined & rebalanced project scope, strategies, and resources throughout production.

My Art

Character Design: Arianelle (Sword Unit)

Character Design: Fiona (Lance Unit)

Chibi Units: Arianelle, Lyra & Fiona (Verna Empire)

Chibi Units: Viviane, Taran & Kalinda (Empire of Orane)

Chibi Units: Drax, Arya, Ellie & Grekz (Outer Territories)

UI Icons for Unit Classes

Game Screenshots

Gameplay Screenshot

Gameplay Tile Movement

[aliciazhen]

"Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" Playing Cards

A game adaptation of the turn-based, two-player card game: Table Battles. I re-skinned the game to be Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse themed, and also implemented some of my own rules and new abilities into the game. Click "Keep Reading" to inspect each card more closely!

#spiderverse #spiderman #spiderman into the verse #card

[aliciazhen]

Aquamiis

July 2021

Game Designer, 2D & UI Artist

About the Game

A monster collection, cookie-clicker game! Set in a meadow, where an enchanted pond used to bring about many mythical creatures, a disastrous drought has stopped the water in the pond from replenishing. And with it, the creatures left too it. Now, it's the player’s duty to bring back the rain! Play here! Made with Phaser 3.

Core Loop by Alicia Zhen

Role: Game Designer, 2D & UI Artist Duration: 1.5 weeks Team Size: 3 Constraints: Teams were prompted to choose between two themes — “Surprise,” or “Lost and Found.”

Contributions

Developed the original concept, storyboard, and narrative of the game.

Drove the vision & implementation of the game's features & systems, including: rules, setting, creature designs, narratives, etc.

Led all visual aspects & elements of our game.

Conceptualized, designed, and wrote biographies for each creature.

Coordinated & facilitated team meetings to track progress & drive actionable tasks (via Discord).

Developed UI / UX workflow and design.

Tutorial Screen by Alicia Zhen

Our team chose to go with the theme of “Surprise,” which we implemented by allowing players to hatch “pods” that contain cute little creatures within them! At the same time, we made our game with the player experience goal of being both relaxing and stress-relieving in mind.

UI Hierarchy by Alicia Zhen

Player Experience Goal:

We wanted to recreate a player experience that'd be both relaxing & surprising.

After thorough research, we chose to make a cookie-clicker game, because we found that games of this genre often help people manage stress and anxiety. Our game achieves this by providing a background sensory activity for people who feel overwhelmed, through the repetitive motion of clicking.

Our core game loop is also kept simple, so that the game doesn’t become too overwhelming for the player (which often happens when there’s too many tasks and complex systems to manage).

Game Overview by Alicia Zhen

We wanted to establish a soft & colorful look for our game, in order to reinforce the theme of relaxation. A stretch goal was to have all the sprites animated to help emphasize this goal, and to make the game feel more “alive.”

By obtaining idle creatures that could animate on-screen, we felt that this would make the "monter collection" aspect of our game feel more rewarding for players. Each creature was also given their own narrative text to make the game experience more immersive and personal, as well as to serve as another form of stress-relief and an escape from reality.

For sound, we sought out sounds that were both calming and “magical” to help accentuate the feeling of stress-relief, as well as allowing the player break away from the stresses of daily life.

Hatching Creatures by Alicia Zhen

Storyboard by Alicia Zhen

[aliciazhen]

Seventino Midnight Café

Jan. 13 — June 16, 2021

UI, Food & Character Artist

About the Game

A cooking game with a blend of adventure, exploration, and hunting for your own ingredients! Play as a barista who runs a small coffee shop, serving customers with unique tastes. Hunt for your own fresh ingredients from the wild! Play here! Made with Unity.

Main Menu Background by Alicia Zhen

Role: UI, Food & Character Artist Duration: 20 Weeks Team Size: 13

The game was presented at the annual UCSC Games Showcase of 2021, where it won the B-A-N-A-N-A-S Award as an “amazing, unexpected, and weird game.”

Cooking System. Art by Alicia Zhen.

Contributions

Drew all ingredients, cafeware, UI buttons, and character illustrations using Procreate.

Organized playtests and wrote reports to help identify bugs & execute test cases.

Participated in team meetings where I tracked, updated, and shared weekly progress with the team using Trello and ClickUp.

Documented team meeting notes with Google Docs, communicated actionable items.

Mei Lien & Qinyang Cameos by Alicia Zhen

Game Tutorial

[aliciazhen]

The Atlas

Jan. 13 — June 16, 2020

Lead 2D Artist, External Collaborator

About the Game

A RPG puzzle game! Shan, a Taoist student, must master the “Five Elements” through cultivation, in order to become a true immortal to save his Master. Play here!

Made with Unity.

A Senior Capstone Project for the Undergraduate Game Design Major of 2020 at UC Santa Cruz. I was given the amazing opportunity to collaborate on the project during my first year of study at the university! The game was presented at the annual UCSC Games Showcase of 2020, where it won the Visual Art Award.

Visual Target by Alicia Zhen

Role: 2D Art Lead, External Collaborator Duration: 20 Weeks Team Size: 18

Contributions

Worked closely with the Producer to contrive the artistic direction & visual style of the game.

Concepted and conceived the visual design of the Main Character.

Coordinated & facilitated team meetings between the art team, and created art guides to help unify our varying art styles.

Talisman Puzzle

Gameplay

Use talismans to cast different spells, in order to overcome challenges (ex., puzzles) during your journey. The puzzles may be difficult to understand at first glance, but prove to be easy as the player familiarizes themself with the inner logic & philosophy of the Five Elements!

Flower Puzzle

Yin and Yang Gate

[aliciazhen]

A Long Way Home

Feb. 20 — Mar. 17, 2020

Game Designer & 2D Artist

About the Game

A puzzle and movement-based indie game made using Bitsy. Play as a lost cat who tries to find their way home! Play here!

Beginning Scene

Role: Game Designer & 2D Artist Duration: 1.5 weeks Team Size: 3

Among 25 other student submissions, our game was selected as a winning game to be showcased at the annual UCSC Games Showcase of 2020.

Contributions

Developed & designed the original concept & narrative of the game.

Drove the vision and implementation of game features & systems (i.e., narrative, settinging, interactive objects, quests, etc.)

Led the development process by delegating tasks, tracking their progress, and updating the team's production schedule.

Coordinated & facilitated team meetings to drive actionable tasks and deadlines with Google Docs.

Drew, designed & developed environments, quests, sprites, and interactive objects within Bitsy.

Northlake Park by Alicia Zhen

Ransom Way, a trailer park neighborhood by Joann Wong

Cliff-Side Waterfall by Brandon Kharaka

Game Design:

Our game provides players with lots of freedom and agency, allowing for emergent gameplay:

Almost every home in each neighborhood has fully furnished & designed interiors, which the player can explore.

(Some locked homes require a key before you can enter! )

There are also signs, objects, animals, and NPCs that the player can speak and interact with.

The game has one main quest that the player must complete in order to progress in the game, and several side quests which the player has the option to either participate in or ignore.

(ex. one "side quest" is the option to help clean up all the trash in Northlake Park, which triggers new dialogues from the NPCs and objects there!)

Albertson Street by Alicia Zhen

Player Experience:

Overall, we wanted the player to feel an initial sense of comfort and ease — particularly at the beginning of the game — as they chase the butterfly. We also hoped that a sense of smallness would follow, as the player realizes that they have to explore and traverse the entire game world in order to find a way back “home.”

(This sense of smallness grows bigger, as the player realizes that the game world isn’t as small as it may have initially appeared.) We hoped that our game would almost create an “open-world”experience, by implementing elements such as exploration and side-quests. With this, players have the agency to roam around the urban neighborhood as they wish, while scavenging for items along the way.

Problem-solving — players must match certain items with certain sprites when taking on side quests. As the game stretches on, players may also feel the want or need to memorize which routes they’ve taken in order to avoid revisiting the same streets, and to find new paths that could help them reach their house as soon as possible.

Friendliness / Curiosity — an experience which sprouts from interacting with the NPCs who live in the neighborhood, exploring their homes, and occasionally helping them out with any problems they might be facing.

Uncertainty — may occur due to different interactions with different NPCs, which could affect the outcome of the game. Based on the different neighborhoods that the cat [the player] will arrive at, NPCs can range from being very kind to very dismissive, or even hostile. 

Ashberry Avenue by Alicia Zhen

Game Reviews:

“This game is beautiful. You all should be very proud of the work you’ve done, and I hope you’re okay with me sharing it with the rest of the graders. I am absolutely taken aback by the level of effort, time, and energy spent on this project and I want you to know that it is not to waste. I wish I could give you more than just one point of extra credit, but alas, rules exist! This game is one for the portfolio. Also, great pokemon references.“ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ—Dany Francis, Course Grader

“Very cute cat / animation / music. Quests are surprisingly deep.“ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ—Judge at UCSC Games Showcase of 2020