Kena: Bridge of Spirits
Kena: Bridge of Spirits (2021)
Ember Lab
Action-adventure game set in a fantastical Asian-inspired world. Play as Kena, a young spirit guide who is attempting to quell the troubled spirits of a cursed village. Made in Unreal Engine, this game was published by Sony for PS5 and PC.
Game Design
Scripted progression, NPC interactions, and cinematic moments
Communicated with animation and engineering departments to develop interactables and mechanics
Integrated all music progression in Unreal to work alongside Wwise
Assisted in building the structure within Wwise for our composer to slot in music, and profiled it
Scripted save/load for progression and maintained correct practices
Created and edited Unreal Blueprints
Designed narrative beats and wrote temporary dialogue scripts
Provided set dressing and feedback for outsourcing level art teams
Was the point person for communication between UI and design
Implemented cutscenes and camera cuts during scripted gameplay progression
Assisted in balancing and placing collectibles
Created documentation of best practices for implementation and scripting in the game
Responsible for bug fixing and QA bug write ups as needed
Animation
Created main character and enemy game animations
Created animation loops for NPCs
Integrated animations within the engine (UE4 Level Sequences) for cutscenes and gameplay
Storyboarded all cutscenes from the script
Created 2D look dev tutorial animations for new abilities
Generalist Art (2D/3D)
Responsible for 3D generalist assistance (modeling, rigging, texturing)
Painted draw overs of concept art from contractors
Created temp UI for testing purposes
Was the go-to 2D art person inhouse
Scripting & Integration
After our level designers completed the block out and direction of a space, I was in charge of setting up the visual scripting glue between the puzzles and combat encounters to bring the progression and narrative together.
Systems Design - The Rot
Early on in the project, I was given the responsibility to brainstorm and come up with the rules of the world in relation to the Rot: how Kena could collect and interact with them.
Level Design & Environments
The level block outs were already created by the time I transitioned into Design, but I was able to assist in narrative set dressing and communicating collision notes to our outsourcing art team.
Music Integration
Near the end of production, I was given the responsibility to assist our composer and sound designer to integrate all progression based music cues and track changes in Unreal and Wwise.
Narrative Design
During my time as an animator, I became integral to the story team as the only storyboard artist. Working with the art director and the CEO’s script, I created the first steps of visuals for all our cutscenes, and which then shifted into helping develop the story and characters for gameplay.
Animation & Art
For the first 2 years of Kena’s production, I was primarily a 3D animator and generalist artist (2D/3D). Check out my gameplay animation reel, storyboards, and more!
