Wandering Willows - Giant Post

Wandering Willows is the game I've been working on over at PlayFirst,Inc. You can also check out the snazzy reviews we've gotten over on Gamezebo. 4.5 stars! Not too shabby :) More reviews here, and here.

Below are a few of the pieces I did for Wandering Willows. It was my responsibility to set the style and tone of the game.

The images above represent how our characters look in the game today.

Just above are early character explorations. If I posted every character direction we tried I'd have to start another blog.

This is just a portion of the concept drawings done for our cute little animals.

This was a joint illustration by Jack Balingit and myself. Jack did the bridge and the space ship. I painted the scene and populated it with characters and trees I'd done at an earlier time. This was an exercise to showcase how the game could look...a visual road map if you will.

Here is an early version of the grasslands (upper left) before we switched to a tile based system. The rest of the images to the right are tree types and instructions for how to make trees. Erin Middendorf gave the in-game versions a pretty new coat of paint.

Here are some ideas for buildings and structures for the game. The Professor's Lab in the upper left set the style. The color version is the actual version in the game.

These little nuggets were made to set the style for the icons.

These are screen shots of the actual game. I also did the User Interface and the special effects/animation. I can't show the special effects here because they are animations, so...go download it here!

Wandering Willows was a mucho fun project, and one of which I am extremely proud. I must give props to my team, simply because they are completely awesome. Dan Chao - our games beloved designer. Dan is passionate, creative, and most importantly smart. He is one of the most fun people with whom you could ever have the pleasure to work. Erin Middendorf - She can draw like most people walk through the air. Do you like those cute animals? How about 98% of all the cool clothes in the game? Let's not forget those gorgeous cinematics! Shuffle on over to her blog and give her a pat on the back. Jim Brooks - Knight in Shining Code. When Jim get's on the case, all your troubles melt away. Nick Stern - Studio Art Director. This man let me run the the ball, giving valued input, and for that I simply can't say enough. Solveig Zarubin - Producer, all out organizer. During the entire game, I think I touched maybe 2 spreadsheets. She shielded me from so much red tape, it's simply astounding. PlayFirst management also needs to be given a big nod here. Hell, they paid for the game! They also gave us a lot of trust, and that's a special thing. For all you non-game developers who read this little old blog 'o mine note this: it takes an entire company to make a game, not just our little team. Quality Assurance, Marketing, PlayFirst Site Team...jeez, the list goes on. All fine folks doing a damn fine job.

I can't leave out the Drawing Crew. You keep a brother sane.