001 Game Design Portfolio

Last year I really wanted to start putting in a lot of hours revamping my portfolio and all around improving my social media presence. Unfortunately last year I also got diagnosed with a RSI due in large part to piping fudge at work which really put a hold on that plan. I’m finally at a point where I feel my wrist is healed enough to start creating again! One of the main goals this year is to create a versatile portfolio for applying to gaming companies. I plan on making it in two parts, one a concept based portfolio, and the second a 2D animation portfolio. There was a lot I had been considering for how to go about it and one of my main questions I had for myself was if I wanted to build my portfolio around one 'game’ or make a ton of different concepts and animations for multiple ‘games’. At the end of the day I decided to go the first route, I think this’ll make the end portfolio look more cohesive and showcase that I can set a style for myself and make a cohesive whole project. Once I finish that if I still feel that the portfolio is a bit bare bones in places I can work on adding a few separate pieces to round out the look of everything.

Once I got the type of portfolio I wanted to create the next step was deciding to base what type of ‘game’ I’d be focusing on. Now there are some really great exceptions to this rule like Cuphead, SkullGirls, and many of Wayforward’s games but in general most games nowadays are heavily skewed towards 3D art and graphics rather than 2D so I feel I need to take into account what most people who might want to hire me are looking for in a 2D animator. In general I feel that the two main camps that would be most likely to hire an artist like me is either a. someone who wants to make a visual novel or b. someone who wants to make a platformer. Of course there are tons of games in different genres some I’ve even mentioned above but if I base my portfolio ‘game’ on those two concepts I feel it would have the widest reach. At the end of the day what I’m attempting to do is create a portfolio of game art rather than a full game, so what I want to do is find a good game that fits these criteria to base my portfolio around so I don’t have to get myself bogged down on the details of ‘how would I code this’ ‘is the game balanced’ ‘is the story paced well’ or other such issues that as a game artist I wouldn’t be involved in. After a lot of research I’ve decided to make the portfolio based on a stat builder game, or more specifically a Princess Maker game. By choosing Princess Maker I will be able to make work that fits in with a visual novel with the base gameplay and some platforming/dungeon crawler work with the errantry mini game that is present in some games of the series.