Clients: Disney, Futurikon, Playlogic
Role: Game designer & game artist
Company: Engine Software

UI and visual design for Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS games

I worked as a game designer and 2D/3D artist on the NintendoDS videogame Dragon Hunters. The game is based on a movie (which in turn is based on a cartoon series) by the same name and we made a videogame based on the preview version of the animated 3D movie that was still in development. My job was to make sure the level and UI design had the same look and feel as the setting of the movie.

I designed the levels by sketching out the designs on paper, then making a rough 3D model to test if the levels are actually fun and challenging to play. The last step was to turn the level into a visually pleasing environment that would also visually guide the kids playing the game to the end of the level.

In total I designed 8 levels, due to the technical limitations of the NintendoDS the 3d models needed to have as few polygons as possible, and the entire level could only use 8 different 32×32 pixel textures. The shading and colors were added by manually coloring each vertex of the entire level in 3D Studio Max.

Besides the level design, I also drew the graphics for most of the menu’s in the game. First a wireframe was made and tested to be functional and practical to use with the stylus of the NintendoDS. After the UI was working I made sure the menu’s looked visually pleasing, the possible UI interactions were defined and in the style of the Dragon Hunters movie, All of these menuscreens were handdrawn in Photoshop.

In total I have worked on 3 NintendoDS titles and 2 Nintendo Wii titles as a designer and artist. For all projects I was responsible for the (visual) design of the User Interface. Below are some examples of the designs and graphics I have made for the User Interfaces and graphics of ThinkKids (DS) and Bang Attack (Wii)