Overview

Starship Home is an ecocentric sci-fi adventure game made for mixed reality. I was Art Director & co-Game Director on this project.

Starship Home is out now on the Meta Quest store!

Client

Creature

Collaborators

Mark Schramm, Doug North Cook & A Core Development Team of 10

Services

Art Direction, Team Leadership, Game Direction, Game Design, All Things Art

Creating the World of Starship Home

As Art Director, I developed our artstyle — lovingly called “cozy sci-fi”. I wanted our game’s world to be tactile & goopy, with equal measures psychedelic alienness & comforting softness. I contributed to every phase of production across the entire pipeline bringing it to life, creating everything from concept art to hero models, base materials, key shaders, UI, cutscenes & VFX.

A detailed visual board titled 'Starship High Level Visual Direction' showcasing various design concepts for a science fiction game or project. The board includes sections on starship treatment, materials, plant systems, props, UI, interaction design
A collage of various digital and artistic images including a girl looking at a sunrise through a tree arch, colorful digital creatures, futuristic gadgets, game covers, scenes of a girl climbing a surreal landscape, a cozy space-themed room, abstract
Concept illustration of a futuristic floating console with a teal and purple color scheme. It features a large monitor with a blue display, compartments that open and expand, control buttons, a floating terminal with attachable strap, and ports for a
A three-panel illustration showing the growth stages of an eye plant. The first panel depicts an organic portal on the ceiling with a teardrop-shaped eye forming at the plant's base. The second panel shows the eye plant transforming into its adolesce
Illustration of robot characters showing different body parts and functions, labeled from A to I, with descriptions of their features such as eyes, arms, and movement capabilities.
A colorful depiction of the Starship Home character, a robot with plant-like features, a smiling green face, and purple limbs, with a plant-like body and a floating head in a pastel color palette.
Digital illustration of the Occhus Floralis plant's growth stages from adolescent to flowering, with a detailed plant pot filled with purple rocks and a glowing emblem at the base.
Digital illustration showing the growth stages of a Gloopvine Plant from adolescent to flowered stage, with a detailed futuristic plant pot at the end.
An animated digital representation of the life cycle of an Omnivorphyta plant, showing stages from adolescent (blighted), adolescent, mature, to flowered, culminating in a colorful, glowing, flower-like creature in a container.
Two digital illustrations of a mystical plant or creature. The left illustration depicts a dark, menacing entity with black and purple tendrils, intense eyes, holding a glowing blue orb. The right illustration shows a bright, peaceful plant or creatu
A fantastical, alien creature with a humanoid form, multiple elongated limbs, and a large glowing orb at its abdomen, seen through a futuristic window with a cosmic background of stars and bright light sources.
A digital sci-fi artwork depicting a dark, demonic creature with glowing pink eyes and horns, holding a glowing orb with energy radiating from it, set against a cosmic background with multiple solar eclipses.
View from inside a spaceship cockpit looking at a colorful planet passing by with rings and several streaks of light in space.
Futuristic spaceship cockpit with a view of a planet in space. The cockpit has a virtual display with mission details, control buttons, and a steering mechanism. The space scene shows a colorful planet and stars.
View from a spaceship window showing Earth, the Moon, and a distant spaceship in outer space with colorful nebulae in the background.

Building & Leading the Art Team

As the sole owner of all things visual, I hired, led & managed an all-remote team of talented artists. My focus as an Art Director was to provide clear goals & constraints so everyone can have space to bring their creative voice to the game.

To facilitate this, I created a style guide, reference collections & pipeline requirements. Along the way, I provided storyboards, draw overs, tutorials, reference & feedback to make our work the best it could be.

Diagram showing six different areas for scene placement in a mixed reality game: wall, ceiling/floor, floating, corner, furniture, and existing game item location. Each area is represented by a gray cube with a blue icon indicating the type of placem
Diagram explaining how props behave on horizontal and vertical surfaces, with illustrations of a prop on a surface showing its visual state and shadow, and climbing vines attaching to a wall with a nearby floating plant.
A design style guide emphasizing organic and functional sci-fi paneling, contrasting with high-frequency, low-saturation designs with tubes and panels, and generic 'Turbo Squid' robot aesthetics. Includes illustrations of abstract, organic shapes wit
Chart comparing geometric shapes and organic, alien shapes, with examples and design tips, featuring cartoonish alien plants and planets on a science fiction theme.
Various colorful cartoon-style alien and spaceship models, including a large spherical alien with multiple appendages, a spaceship with a control panel, smaller alien creatures, and plant-like structures, all from the Starship Home art style.
Comic-style depiction of a psychedelic plant growing in a mystical environment, with visual effects, animation, and interactive elements described in panels, including glowing platforms, glowing plant, and creatures reacting to the player's interacti
Diagram of a spaceship airlock with annotations describing components such as indicator lights, a surround on the screen, a simplified shape inspired by a layout, a button, and removal of the handle on the door for easier pulling. Additional notes me
Diagram comparing plant-like alien structures with spacecraft. Features include spirals, seed shapes, and scale shapes in the plants, with annotations about their design resembling space ships, which can be less airplane or x-wing, more abstract and
Digital art of a purple, wispy cloud with glowing eyes and tears, labeled 'Ash's Paintover,' showing an undulating, smoky, wispy cloud formation with dynamic, flickering purple and red flames and elements indicating movement and emotion.

Sharing Knowledge at GDC 2024

I produced a talk for the Game Developer’s Conference about the Art Direction of Starship Home. It was rated one of the top talks of the conference.

Check it out on the GDC Vault here!