Zineth
Zineth is a fluid, movement-centered game built using Unity, for Spring 2012 semester of Experimental Game Design at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
In a largely empty, desert-like world with scattered cities full of people too absorbed
with their cellphones to travel or develop other interests, you play as an unusual young man who wants to
see the world. Using a mechanical limb setup on which you have spent all your money, you skate across
the desert from city to city gathering information for and delivering a small zine which has hired you as a
way for you to pay off your debt, and for it to reach out to the unmoving denizens of the cities.
Like the other citizens of the world, you have the option to lose yourself playing the simplistic 2D monster-raising /
fighting cellphone game that has consumed the lives of so many, or attempt to
open the eyes of the world and make life interesting once more.
At RPI's Gamefest 2012, Zineth won People's Choice: Best in Show, and placed third in the Vicarious Visions Student Challenge.
In 2013 Zineth won Best Student Game at the Independent Games Festival in San Francisco, California.
My role in this project involved first rigging the character model, weight painting it, and then all of the player character animations. Additionally I worked on modeling various environmental objects including cacti, crates, and telephone poles.
If you wish to play Zineth yourself, you can find a downloadable demo here. The game is optimized for play with an Xbox360 controller, but can still be played with a mouse and keyboard.
