Are you a gamer or do you like games in general? Do you remember Phoenix Ready games in our last blog about them!?
Art by Artist Intern Erika Gonzalez
PRG known as Phoenix Ready Games is working on collaborating with Design Hub. Daniel Todd the CEO of PRG other known as Phoenix ready games, but also a known ARC Student is working with the Design Hub by using there interns for their upcoming game Holiday wars and a new game that is in development at the moment. Many of the interns who have joined Daniels team are great with 3D modeling, 2D Artwork, Programming, and Animation.
3D Model Done by 3D Modeling Intern Jea Lee
You might of heard of them from a blog post a year ago when they were working on Holiday Wars.
Some of the interns that are working with PRG is getting paid for their work by the Design Hub.
Some of the interns who aren’t getting paid are working on their own time when they don’t have other Design Hub work to do.
Just like a previous blog post about Holiday Wars; Daniel and his team is still working on finishing up this project and getting the game ready to be able to play.
The other game the company is working on is still in development and still in discussion with the team. Furthermore about this project is still in making and will be announced when the game is fully discussed and in programming.
Recently Design Hub have given Daniel couple more programmers to help them push out the game. These types of interns are going to be excellent to help them push the game out. These games in the future are going to be on steams store ready for people to play and enjoy!
Brought to us by the creative mind of Design Hub intern Daniel, we have a game that has been slowly brought to fruition titled “Holiday Wars: Battle of the North”. The creative team behind the development of Holiday Wars also consists of 10 Design Hub interns including coders, visual artists, and designers for website management that have collaborated on the project. While at first the goal for the project was for all of the interns to gain experience in making a shipped game for their portfolio, it has evolved into something so much more. “The main goal of the game was to keep it simple, accessible, easy to pick up and play, while still being casually hard to master,” Daniel tells us. He also mentions that the game has had a few different iterations and developments, but it has now evolved into the RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game that it is today.
Inspiration for this game included games such as World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2, and the game’s design aesthetic is very cute and fun, but with a subtle, dark undertone that’s sure to give players chills.
The game is being designed for publishing on Steam with roughly 9-10 playable levels. As Daniel puts it, it is like chess but without the turns. Players play as an army of Christmas Elves, commanded by a popular figure like “Santa” or characters like “the Snow Queen”. While players explore the gorgeous snowy landscape, they come across other characters as well. Enter the Woppletingers-
Woppletinger character design by Daniel Todd
These mythical, beastly creatures were originally designed by Daniel and the Design Hub’s creative team, striking fear and awe into players as they encounter them. Everything players experience in the game was designed on programs including Blender for 3D modeling, Unity for the actual engine of the game, and Photoshop for art and concepts.
The game, taking place in a chilly terrain surrounded by mountains, is essentially a giant epic snowball fight between Santa’s Army and the Woppletinger tribe, along with other armies lurking in the cold as they fight for supremacy. While players are gathering resources to build their base, they are producing and controlling an army in hopes to defeat the enemy with the very same objective. Daniel mentions that both sides are planned to be balanced, so it’s really a matter of skill who determines the victor in a fair environment.
Design Hub intern Daniel, working with team member on Holiday Wars game
Daniel has been working as an intern for the Design Hub for one semester, but has been nursing this project for the last few years. He tells us, “any game project requires a lot of work, and I’ve learned that the hard way over the years. We couldn’t have done this alone, and I’m happy I met a ton of interns excited about the future of the game, and passionate for game design”.
Amazingly enough, the Design Hub has also actually helped Daniel start up his own company, Phoenix Ready Games. He is graduating this term, and unfortunately leaving the Design Hub, but he plans to to cooperate with the Design Hub as an external business as he expands into other projects.
He tells us he would love to have this opportunity be available for students in the future; as he would’ve loved to have an opportunity like this when he first started ARC himself. And we at the Hub couldn’t agree more.
All the creativity, collaboration, and hard work from Daniel and his team that went into this game is truly remarkable, and is something that our Design Hub Team is extremely proud of.
Anyone interested in playing the game can send us an email, or keep checking our website and social media pages for updates on the game’s release on Steam. Thank you to everyone involved, and everyone who has supported the game thus far.
As the war rages on, which side will you fight for?
A project currently in progress in the Design Hub of American River College is called the “Dieselzilla vs. Drones” Project. We start with interns Kevin and Sean, who are collaborating along with James Mullerleile on this project in the Design Hub. Kevin is the programmer, and Sean is the 3D Designer behind this project. When we first hear the word, “Dieselzilla,” of course we are left wondering “what in the world is this, and what does it do?”
Well, Dieselzilla is the huge metal sculpture in the front of the Student Services and Cafeteria area (the huge glass building behind the American River College Library).
Every day on the way to class, students who walk past it are seen doing double takes. Most can’t take their eyes off of it- as mesmerizing as a well-crafted, fantastically massive Godzilla sculpture can be. Most students on campus pass Dieselzilla every day and have no clue as to how or why it got there. Even our photography intern, Angelique, told us “Ever since I started attending, I wondered what it was and why it was there- and now I had the chance to find out,” before she captured some pictures of the magnificent metal beast.
Parts of Dieselzilla. Photo by photography intern Angelique Doty
The Design Hub interns discussed the structure of the sculpture. It actually moves around with the use of a hydraulic system within the Dieselzilla! To the right, we can take a look at what goes inside of the massive metal body.
These are the parts that were designed and put together by our interns, and this is what makes the magic happen. With everything in place, Dieselzilla comes to life!
This is a very cool, collaborative project, as well as an impressive and intriguing presence everyday on our campus.
Painted by artist intern Erika Gonzales, photo by photography intern Angelique Doty
Here we meet up with Erika Gonzalez, the artist intern at the Design Hub involved in past projects such as the Ishango Bones and the Cell Membrane projects. Now she shows us her beautiful new sculpture that she is painting for Jiajun Guan. The people involved in this wonderful new project are: Erika Gonzalez, Jiajun Guan, and a team of 3D modelers and 3D printers.
Painted by artist intern Erika Gonzales, photo by photography intern Angelique Doty
Jiajun Guan found Erika painting the Ishango Bones (discussed in the other blogs and twitter posts) in the Design Lab 211, and was so inspired by her fantastic artistic talents with the paintbrush that he asked Randy, our tream ead at the Design Hub, to recruit her to do some work for him too! Erika was assigned to paint the generic anime character for Jiajin Guan, and she finished beautiful painting in 11 hours of work from March 8- March 12! Soon this sculpture of the generic anime character will be moved from the Design Hub Room 311 and will probably be moved to a place for student to stop by and look at it, or it may be placed on Jaijun Guan’s desk.
Painted by artist intern Erika Gonzales, photo by photography intern Angelique Doty
Even though this beautiful sculpture is the only of her kind, we can all look forward to seeing Erika Gonzalez’s fantastic art skills in the future projects that she will be participating in. She will be collaborating with Jiajun Guan with the Snow Wars project, specifically, working on the development of “Snow Wars Santas.”
She uses the same techniques as the cell membrane and Ishango bones projects: she paints the sculpture first with acrylic paint, then seals in the paint with Mod Podge. What was different with this sculpture was the way Erika painted the eyes: with an ink pen! She used the ink pen to add gentle and minute detail to the character’s eyes, giving them a certain life and sparkle. We are definitely looking forward to future art and 3D printing collaboration projects to come!
Just like a previous blog post about Holiday Wars; Daniel and his team is still working on finishing up this project and getting the game ready to be able to play. 
