Jetpack Penguin was a group project I was a part of for my Game Lab class at UTD, where we were organized into groups and smaller teams and given a semester to create a functioning game. I was part of the art team for Jetpack Penguin and helped direct the game’s art style, organize the art team to work with other parts of the project such as the level design team, and create the game’s environments. Every member of the art team collectively created a wide variety of assets which we used to decorate specific levels that were given to each team member. I have created a smaller scene using the assets I alone created, and provided screenshots further down of the two levels I was responsible for decorating.
The concept behind Jetpack Penguin was to create a 3D Platformer similar to Mario Sunshine, Mario Odyssey, Hat in Time, and others typical of the genre. The titular character was a little penguin with a homemade jetpack named Pluck, who was on an adventure to find the magical crystals he would need to upgrade his jetpack. Keeping consistent with the fun narrative, we decided to use a painterly art style inspired by Hat in Time. We used orange colors to help communicate important gameplay aspects to the player such as notifying them of danger and helping guide them. This was chosen to help break up the monotony of the blues and whites that would be the default due to the game’s antarctic setting, and because they would be immediately noticeable against said colors.
The two scenes I was responsible for decorating with the team’s assets were the central Penguin Village and the second Ice Cave that the player would explore. Both levels were first designed by one of our level designers, who then handed it off to me and explained the level’s thematic design as well as the expected route for the player so that I could decorate it to help guide the player through the level. The Penguin Village in particular was rather difficult as it was large enough that I needed to come up with several areas that would stand out from each other to help the player navigate the level, as this level was a more open-ended area to encourage the player to experiment with the game’s mechanics. The areas I came up with were a marketplace, a forest area, and a large shrine area, each one providing unique features to help the player understand where in the level they were.
The other area, the Ice Cave, was the second area that the player would explore after getting to the Penguin Village, and was designed to be the first real test of their skills. The environment as a result is significantly more linear with a couple of collectibles the player can find. As this level was supposed to be a sheer ice cave near the beginning of Pluck’s adventure, we decided to keep it relatively bare compared to some of the later levels, to help the player understand they were going deeper into the cave system.
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