First Launch

Wow! First self published title!

Hello to everyone reading this! As you can tell, I'm excited! My name is Russ, and I'm a graduate student in London, UK. I've made some games in the past, as part of a team effort, but this is my first published solo work. This game is an assigned production for one of my courses, but I'm pretty proud of it, and wanted to share it with everyone!

I've had this concept rattling around in the back of my head for a while now, and I'm so glad I've gotten an opportunity to fully realize it. I'm not accepting any payments or donations for the work, I just hope that people try it, and more so, I hope they like it!

Hexzen is loosely based on a concept I ran across in a Chinese Xianxia novel I read several years ago. Many of those novels are based on a concept of self-improvement focused on meditation, energy absorption, and combat prowess, known as cultivation. Also, many of the themes are centered around the elements. I wanted to create an expression of meditation, contemplation, and improvement, represented as piecing together different bits of understanding which are related to each other. I imagined this construct as visually represented in the game, albeit with some variation due to constraints on programming and whatnot.

My undergraduate work is in computer animation and game development, with a focus on game design and production. My graduate work is centered on player experience design. I did all of the modelling and texturing, programming, and just about everything, excluding the audio. I found music in the public domain, as well as some sound effects. The outline is a Unity Store asset called Quick Outline. It's free to use and I have already used it in a couple of other projects.

Software used in the production include:
Unity and Visual Studio for the meat of it
AutoDesk Maya for modelling
Substance Painter for texturing
OBS for video capture

As this project is due at the end of Reading Week, I have decided to finalize production.  I also need to build it for a Mac environment, but I won't be releasing that build.

I look forward to more releases in the future, particularly a second iteration of Hexzen, although that will have to wait until after I get my MA.