TZIMTZUM
A collaboration between several college friends, Tzimtzum is a surreal retro-styled horror game inspired by P.T., cosmology and Jewish mysticism. For my role I provided most of the art assets and assisted in design.
As the project's art lead, I was responsible for creating the lion's share of environmental assets for the office setting, plus the two featured monsters encountered in the demo.
Models were created in a low-poly style, taking inspiration from 70's North American office design and consumerist culture. Textures and materials were comprised of both photos taken by myself and reference images scattered throughout the internet, purposefully downscaled to give our game a detailed, albeit lo-fi sheen to it.
Creature design was largely based on the works of Zdzisław Beksiński and David Cronenberg, emphasizing subversion of the familiar human form. Great effort was put forth to convey much of this horror through character movements, animated using custom-made rigs.
Currently a work-in-progress with a demo out, Tzimtzum is an atmospheric horror game set in a cubicle farm sheltering a primordial secret. Taking cues from Silent Hill, alongside its modern interpretations like Lost in Vivo and Cry of Fear, Tzimtzum utilizes graphics reminiscent of the PS1 era with an emphasis on non-Euclidean spaces and restrained sound design. Hideous figures and mind-bending constructs litter the deceivingly drab walls of the corporate complex, and only by peeling layer after fetid layer could an end, or perhaps beginning, be unearthed.
Tzimtzum's demo is available to download on my itch page.
Tzimtzum was developed by:
Vivian Rousseau - graphics programming, game programming, game design, sound design, additional art
Stef Pinto - 3d/2d art, animation, level design
Darien Caron - game programming
Remi Teeple - game programming