Blood Garden is a 1v1 tag team fighting game set in a modern fantasy setting where duo combatants face off in a blood sport to climb to the top of the ranks. In this 2D fighter, players can choose to face off against one opponent with their champions or team up with another person to take down any rivals that challenge them together. The core system of the game is focused around building up power and stringing together combos to defeat the opponent. Rylan was the lead designer for the team, focusing on the worldbuilding aspects of the game, the setting, the story, and more. The playable characters of Alastar and Pandora were also both concepted and designed by him for the game. Rylan also filled in additional roles for the game when needed, such as assisting with art to help push the game to its final state.

About the Project:
This project was originally pitched when the development team discovered the love for a 2D fighting game concept. The idea I pitched uses the core concepts from one of my worlds of writing, focusing on an elemental triangle for character magic to distinguish unique characteristics of playstyles (an initial concept of the elemental triangle is pictured below). Each corner of the triangle would represent a magical concept - Arcane, Nature, and Cosmic - and have three unique elements within. Characters would be designed around these elements to make unique styles so players could easily distinguish personalities, silhouettes, fighting styles, and more. From there, elements were designed to have unique attributes that would be shared between characters of the same element for later expansion.

Alastar and Pandora are the two characters initially designed for the game’s release. Alastar is a more all-rounder, not focused in one style of combat to better his simplistic playstyle for beginners. Having access to a projectile and a powerful shield allows for beginners to easily pick up the game. Pandora, meanwhile, is designed for more experienced fighters, focused on having mostly projectiles to better zone out opponents. Zoning, in general, is a hard playstyle to balance for feel, so she also has some close-range skills to help push opponents away while still feeling fair to fight. The initial design to concept to full model is seen below for both characters.

While two other characters were planned to be released for the final demo (a Wind character focused on rushing down opponents and a Water character that specializes in grabs and grapples), they were cut before release due to time restrictions and a struggle to fully push out the art necessary for each character. The team severely underestimated the amount of art we would need in order to release the game in a full state, so many people had to fill in and help with art design to have Alastar and Pandora ready to fight.

Personally, the project was a very great learning experience for me. As much as I had plenty of design concepts for the game, I found myself empty-handed as I waited for art for each character. Later in the development process, I picked up helping the lead artist by taking some of the workload needed to get the game in a decent state. By the release of the project, most of the initial concepts (elemental passives, a heavy attack and moveset, multiple supers, tag team combos, etc.) had to be cut to make sure the game could even play. Trying to reach for perfection in a project like this is always necessary, but I’m glad to have learned when and where to cut ideas and keep the same vision for the game. I’d love to continue development of the game with the rest of the team to try and get the game into the beautiful vision I originally pitched.