Jan 22, 2014

Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary Edition


They've unveiled Boulder Dash: 30th Anniversary Edition

How cool is it to get to participate in the reinterpretation of a game you played when you were a kid? I usually don't tend to accept freelance gigs, but I used to play Boulder Dash for hours in my brother's old, rubber-keyed ZX Spectrum, so it was impossible to say no when they asked me to help revamp it. I mainly did concepts, background illustrations and a few mockup 3D models. This one's a rushed merge between one of Rockford's renderings and a background concept I got to rework during a weekend, presumably for the cover of Retro Gamer magazine.

Hopefully I'll get to show more in the future.

Jan 16, 2014

SteamDevDays

Ho!

I'm at SteamDevDays in Seattle this week. Lots of cool info to learn from, and we even got a prototype SteamController! If you're around, drop me a line to the mail :)

Jan 10, 2014

Career Bucket List

I was thinking last January 5th (during which Spanish kids do their wanted gift lists for the "3 Wise Men") about cool projects I'd die to work in. After some quick brainstorming, I crafted my own "career bucket list".

No matter how much you enjoy your work, there's always lots of projects in your head, and always someone else's projects that make you go 'damn, I'd have loved to work in that one'. This list doesn't mean I wouldn't love to do other, completely different stuff; and in fact the list probably drifts during one's lifetime. It doesn't even mean I have the most remote expectations to fulfill all of them. If just a couple of them ever happened, I'd probably be the happiest guy in town.

So, for the power of wishful thinking, here's a list of the stuff I'd die to ever be a part of!

  • a 3D old-school brawler
  • designing creatures/characters for a child-oriented MMO (unless it's one of those corny Flash games)
  • a "mascot" platformer (sort of like Earthworm Jim, Donkey Kong, Crash Bandicoot, etc)
  • a lighthearted/stylized reinterpretation of a formerly realistic/boring IP
  • anything in a "Torchlight / "Magicka" fashion
  • a wacky, kart-like racing game
  • art-directing a painterly graphic adventure
  • designing the gameplay mechanics for some personal game concept (which seldom match the previously listed ones)
and specific titles:

  • anything "Oddworld" (man, who would I have to kill for that?)
  • anything based in the "Monkey Island" IP (that one's in honor of my 20-year-ago self)
  • a sequel to "No One Lives Forever"