S.Q. Tailblazer from Rodent Rampage

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  Run cycle animation

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  Idle flight cycle

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  Fall and bounce gameplay transition

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  Electrocution fall and bounce animation, minus jetpack

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  Rise flight animation

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  Descend flight animation

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  Land animation

The game as a whole:

Rodent Rampage is an endless runner mobile game about S.Q. Tailblazer, a squirrel determined to collect the most acorns through any means necessary, even if it means creating a jet pack from a stolen leaf blower! We were inspired by the mobile game Jetpack Joyride and aimed to create a game that provided a similar level of increasingly frantic fun; it was made in Unity by a team of 6 over the course of about 8 weeks during an 11 week program (we made the decision to switch gears a few weeks in, after we re-evaluated the direction we were headed). We faced numerous challenges -- many of our members had little to no experience in Unity or on games in general, it was our first time building a mobile game, and we often struggled to come to a unified decision on the creative direction of the game. Despite our setbacks, I believe we made something we can all be proud of. We learned a great deal about effective communication, how to quickly pivot based on external and internal feedback, and the importance of appropriate scope.

The animations:

I was in charge of designing and animating the player character, S.Q. Tailblazer; they were created in Clip Studio Paint. This was my first time making animations for a "real" game's player character, as I had previously only done individual animation cycles or a few animations to traverse an example scene. I learned a lot about transitions and how they can drastically change based on the intended platform and usage. I worked extensively with the programmer in charge of the character controller, diagramming and many of the animation transitions I had made, like launch and land, had to be shortened to only a few frames due to player controls. It was of course a bit sad from a purely art-perspective because it meant less smooth transitions when viewed by themselves, but it taught me to constantly be thinking of the art's purpose when making art for games. Ultimately, the shortened animations worked better for the fast-paced and physically small screen we had, and thus the right call was made to shorten them. I'm significantly more aware of creating animations that will lend themselves to be easily implemented into the character controller by the programmers now -- this is what I'm doing on the game I'm currently working on, Operation Breadcrumbs!

Built With

• clip-studio-paint
• unity