Esther FAYNOT - Portfolio
Level Design - Student
Game Artist (2D)
Crimeware:
Neon Heist
Pitch
Play as a young street kid in a techno-magic world full of crime as they plan the "greatest heist" of the decade by robbing the biggest Mega Corporation. Assemble a team of criminal experts to help you navigate through the building, complete challenges and take treasure. But be careful ! One too many mistakes and you might get caught !
Platform: PC
Controls: Gamepad
Players: 1 (Solo)
Engine: Unity
Dev Start: November 2021
Dev End: January 2022 (3 Months)
WarioWare-Like
Accomplishments
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Worked fully as a 2D Artist making assets for the macro-game
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Created an Artistic Direction and visual identity for the game
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Studied and made animated and juicy UI
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Designed all Characters / Portraits (20)
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Designed all Environment and Level Art
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Learned to work in a team of 40+ people
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Created my first ever splash-art for a game.
This is a project made by a team of 40+ people working together in different groups. Everybody was assigned a specific role and a hierarchy was created to facilitate the pipeline. I was assigned as part of the Art team focusing on the macro-game. Together with my 2 other colleagues, we worked on the artistic direction and made many 2D assets. The art in the mini-games were not made by us.
About Game
Recruit - Heist - Retreat - Repeat
The aim of the game is to collect as much money as you can before the alarm rings or time runs out. Many challenges (mini-games) will be laid out before you, try your luck against them with the help of the team you build at the start of a run.
At the end, you either get caught or go home with the loot. The more money you gain, the bigger the heist you can pull off next time !
Macro
Move floor to floor in a giant corporation tower stealing everything in your way. As you go up, the heist gets harder but the loot bigger. High risk, high reward !
This part mixes narration and gameplay in order for the minigames to make sense.
(I worked on this part of the game ! )
Micro
As you make your way up, stealing everything, different challenges and wacky mini-games will try to stop you !
Lose too much and the alarm might ring!
Development
Context
This game was made by a group of 40+ people specialized in either Game Design or Programming. At the start of the project we could apply for different roles based and had to pass a selection in order to get that role. The team leaders / producers and everyone in the Macro team were selected based on skill in a certain domain (Sound Design, Game Art, Programming, Game Design, Producing / Management). This created a clear and organized hierarchy with the rest developping minigames.
My Experience
As a Game Artist in this project I was given along with my team free reign on the artistic direction for the game. With this, we created something I am proud of. I took the more creative role on the team, focusing on making characters (style inspired by Helltaker), environments (based on universes like Arcane) and even the splashscreen and title !
While art isn't my main speciality, I really enjoyed my role in this project. It allowed me to gain more experience in this field as well as taught me how to better communicate with the art team
in future projects.
The Team
43 People
Project Manager
Team Leaders / Producers
Game Design
Programming
Art
Sound/Music
9 Teams of 3 Game Designers / Programmers
Macro Team
Micro Team
Matteo Schatteman
Toinon Robaux
13 People
30 People
My Part
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Designed and produced 2 different environments with their props (tilemaps)
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Designed and produced 20 different characters (Portraits + Sprites & animations)
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Created the Artistic Direction (references, color palettes, mockups)
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Created the background / splashscreen along with the title.
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Worked on other UI elements (transition between mini-games)
