Art Direction Team Leadership Game Direction & All Things Game Art for Creature
Starship Home is psychedelic sci-fi adventure game made for mixed reality. I was Art Director & co-Game Director on this project.
Starship Home is out now on Meta Quest 3!
Directing a joyful, psychedelic MR game
Mark Schramm & I shared Game Director responsibilities. We were ultimately responsible for producing a fully voiced sci-fi adventure game filled with lovable plants & joyful surprises.
Everything you see below has been a collaborative effort from our international all-remote team of 15+ people.
Creating the World of Starship Home
As Art Director, I developed our artstyle — lovingly called “cozy sci-fi”. I wanted our game’s world to be tactile & goopy, with equal measures psychedelic alienness & comforting softness. I contributed to every phase of production across the entire pipeline bringing it to life, creating everything from concept art to hero models, base materials, key shaders, UI, cutscenes & VFX.
Early in production, I tried to take the time to ensure I was always communicating what, why & how something might be achieved. I shifted my focus to finaling near-complete areas of the game as we get farther along, both helping teammembers ensure their best work shipped & cutting unessential features when necessary.
Supporting A Wonderful Art Team
As the sole owner of all things visual, I hired, led & managed an all-remote team of talented artists. My focus as an Art Director was to provide clear goals & constraints so everyone can have space to bring their creative voice to the game.
To facilitate this, I created a style guide, reference collections & pipeline requirements to start us off on a strong footing. Along the way, I provided storyboards, detailed draw overs, tutorials, reference & feedback to make our work the best it could be.
Store Art, Website & Marketing content
I also handled the end-to-end creation of our game’s announce & release key art assets. I composed & captured them directly in Unity in 8k, then composited & retouched them in Photoshop. This also involved me creating our game’s launch website, store art & an animated endcard for our launch trailer.
Our logo was created by the incredible artist Jesse Tise, from which I created a 3D version. Jack Erskine animated our endcard, which I then finalized & added SFX/VFX to.
Sharing knowledge at GDC
I also was humbled to give a talk at GDC 2024’s Future Realities Summit about the Art Direction for Starship Home. It was rated one of the top talks of the conference!