DEATH SWAP: END AS ONE
GEEKY GECKO GAMES | 14 WEEKS
Character design | sculpting & modelling | texturing | 3D animation | promotional art
SOFTWARES USED
Blender
3DCoat
3DCoatTextura
Adobe Photoshop
Unity
Developed within a tight 14-week timeframe by a team of 16 members, the online co-op horror game Death Swap: End As One has reached more than 40.000 gamers worldwide. During this project I was in charge of the design, 3D model and animations of the monster character the players have to run from. Next to that, I worked on the 3D modelling of several 3D assets, and was responsible for the design of promotional banners and the studio logo. The project was exhibited at the Dutch National Videogame Museum in february 2023, and is currently available on Steam.
This was a collaborative project at the Game Design & Development Minor at Hogeschool Rotterdam.
Friends who stay together,
die together
Concept art monster
I started by sketching out various different ideas. We wanted the monster to have some kind of deformation caused by a lab accident. Furthermore, the character had to have a "Swap-device" on him, which is connected to the game's unique main game mechanic.
I made a couple of variations in which I thought about a reason why the character would have ended up looking the way it does. I found much inspiration in body horror art from for example Junji Ito and H. R. Giger.
After a couple rounds of feedback and discussing the variations, we settled on a design we thought was iconic, scary and relatively convenient to execute: a long and deformed humanoid figure. He was originally supposed to be around 4 meters long. I sketched out a couple of variations of the idea, in which I included elements that give hints about the backstory of the character, such as chains to signal he has been locked up, or a labcoat to show his profession.
In the end we decided the character to be Archibald Magnus: a mad scientist who accidentally deformed and merged with one of his inventions after an experiment gone wrong.
Sculpting & texturing
After making the modelsheets, I started sculpting the character. When the sculpt and the retopology whas finished, I drew the textures.
Animation
Due to time constraints, it was not possible to execute some of the more elaborate ideas we had for the animations, such as gruesome death animations.
Concept art player characters
At the beginning of the project, I had made a few sketches of player characters as well. These characters would be interns on their first day at Voro Laboratories, the science facility where the monster has gone loose. I made characters with distinct personalities in mind.
3D modelling
I modelled and textured a couple of low-poly objects for the environment of the game.
Promotional art
I designed the banners used for the Steam store page of the game, and designed the poster the game was marketed with. I made use of flashing colours and dynamic visuals to make the images stand out and communicate the action-aspect of the game. Next to that, I played with dark space and eerie lightning from below to reflect its horror theme.
Studio logo
I designed the logo for our studio Geeky Gecko Games. I made a couple of variations, inspired by the studio name and identity. After presenting the designs to the team, we voted what type of design we liked best.
