1. Hi there! What's your name? Want to introduce yourself?
I am Ryan. I guess you could say I'm a failed artist. Four years out of college, got a BA in Studio Art, have done next to nothing with it, live with my parents - you get the picture.
2. Did you participate in the last jam we held? If so, what do you plan on doing better this time? If not, what's your reason for joining?
I did. The end result was an alpha build for a prospective game called The Cabin of the Doe. Working on that was the most animated I'd ever been since the year prior about making any kind of artwork, but I simply let the project get too big for its britches - there was simply no way to incorporate everything I wanted to do with that game in the span of a fortnight, and now that that jam has wrapped up, I've lost momentum on it entirely. I'll want to wrap things up with that game in the future, but for now, there's another work I've been itching to put a bow on for a while now. Like the last attempt, this game will simply be too big to finish in two weeks - so I'm sticking to a tight scenario that would play out in the full title, should I even get that far.
3. What games are your favorites? Did any of them inspire you, or made you want to make your own?
I love Barkley Shut Up and Jam Gaiden by Tales of Games, Dog of Dracula by TEAM BATSU, Dys4ia by Anna Anthropy, and Lakeview Cabin Collection by Roope Tamminen, among others. I suppose there's a lot of games that encouraged me to make my own, but my main motivator is personal irritation. I've had so many pie-in-the-sky ideas that never went anywhere because of a lack of understanding on my part, or just a failure to capitulate on my own wants and needs from a project. So, I guess I'm inspired by bitterness.
I4. Do you have experience with game development? What did you do/with what engine?
I have a fair to middling amount of experience with game development, having made alpha builds of visual novels in Ren'py and platformers in Adobe Flash. This will be my first time doing any work in Unity, and I'm slowly building up anticipation, working through tutorials to see what's what with the system.
5. Tell us about something you're passionate about!
Comics! I love telling stories in comic format, and that's a main source that I draw from and approach any artistic project with. This one is no exception, as I want to use my skills with storytelling to hopefully navigate this project into something playable.