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Conceptual Work: Laboratories in the Game, Unstable Scientific

Abandoned Laboratory Level Background (work in progress)

In this level of the game you’ll be investigating an abandoned lab where something went wrong with a new kind of AI chip design. Because the lab is on a remote island, I wanted the architecture to match the function of being light to transport and simple enough to assemble by a small team, while also being sturdy against the elements (such as a tropical storm) and imposing in appearance. Eventually it became a combination a wealthy Burning Man attendee’s tent and a LAV. Even though the player will primarily be seeing the lab from the inside, it was important to design the general idea of the building in order to get details such as windows and cable rigging correct, as well as the manner of the decay the place will experience.

At the moment, this is a work in progress and the pixel art is far from finished, but I wish to share this with you since it is conceptually the most involved piece so far and demonstrates the kind of skills I can offer in this area.

Abandoned Lab pixel art in progress (4 layers that will be in parallax). Sorry, it’s far from finished!

Abandoned Lab, one of the final sketches before proceeding to the pixel art stage.

Outer architectural design sketch. The pink beams are hazards from the previous level leading up to it, taking place in a volcanic wasteland called the Silver Craters.

Color and feel study. Because there were so many details to consider such as what equipment and game challenges would be inside, I spent some time just working out what I wanted the feel of the place to be, so I could always come back to it. It’s easy to get lost in the technical challenges of level art and lose track of the original idea!

Chandra Cassini’s Lab

The main characters’ labs are all low budget and set up in shipping containers. Chandra studies the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR), searching for signs of the existence of other adjacent universes. Since most of her work would be done on a computer and external radio telescope, it was a challenge to make it look more interesting than it would in real life.

Process sketches

Absurdium Fabric Device

I learned that nylon is created at the thin place where two chemicals have a reaction, so I wanted to design an all-in-one device that could weave the protagonist’s armor in the lab where you could upgrade it.

Rough concept sketch before it was turned into pixel art.

Semiconductor Lab

The primary collectible in Unstable Scientific is absurdium. It’s a room temperature superconductor among other “science holy grail” qualities. So of course we had to have a semiconductor lab on the remote island. A geodesic dome seemed to be the choice for architecture that could easily be transported and assembled to a location rich in absurdium, while also keeping out the elements. It was exciting to discover just how many manufacturing steps are involved when creating processors. I had to speak to an actual VLSI designer to learn all the correct keywords just in order to navigate the expansive and complex field.

My favorite challenge to condense a few of the manufacturing steps into concise and recognizable animations. If the design seems sparse, this is because there are typically NPCs in this lab with which to interact.

Sketches for the various equipment in the semiconductor lab, based on objects from actual VLSI labs.

Pixel’s Quantum Optics Lab

The character Pixel Harding studies the quantum effects of the mysterious element, absurdium. In real life quantum mechanics effects are usually observed with specialized equipment and only seen on computers, so I had to exaggerate a little bit in order to make her lab seem more exciting and dynamic when rendered in-game. But as much of the equipment as possible was taken from reference photos of real-life labs where different types of quantum effects are studied (mostly for the purpose of developing new types of processors and for quantum computing applications).

Some of the sketches and designs that were not too rough to show here! Also at this point I’d like to apologize for the sudden change in formatting, Squarespace has been a nightmare to work with.