Shin’ai is a story-based game about a girl reconnecting with her grandfather in a rural village in Japan.
In the game, the player alternates between walking simulator portions, in which the player gets to explore Oyamamura (lit. small mountain village), and mini-games revolving around different chores, such as rolling onigiri or fixing the restaurant’s tables.
The game, doubling as our senior capstone project, was developed over the course of 5 months; the majority of development took place at Ritsumeikan University’s Ibaraki campus. At Ritsumeikan, we also split up in smaller teams to work on a game using RTK GNSS signals (see Oni Egg Hunt)
My primary role of the team was to animate: I created animations for both the main character and her grandpa, as well as level sequences for cutscenes. I was inspired by the snappy movements used in live action anime series, such as Happy Kanako’s Killer Life.
I also assisted with level design: I helped with designing the environment so that players could have gratuitous angles of the restaurant as players walked up to it, setting up the game’s core mysteries.
Software corner
– made in Unreal Engine
– animated with Autodesk Maya
Credits
– Ian Tschida, character modelling
– Torin Danielski, Jake Matthews, and Joel Hokkanen, coding work
– Lana Acevedo, music and sound design
– Professor Haruo Noma and Fujiyoshi Satoko for voice acting