My Role in the Team

Although my formal role in the team was Technical Artist, I was also the only member responsible for the visual development of the project. This meant that my work extended beyond technical implementation inside the engine. I also developed the art direction, visual rules, pixel style, UI direction, map assets, character assets, and overall visual consistency for The Verdant Trail.Personally, I was very interested in this project’s art direction. My usual personal art practice is closer to an AA+ / higher-detail concept art direction, but this project gave me the opportunity to explore a smaller-scale, restrained pixel-inspired visual style. This was a valuable challenge because it required me to think less about visual spectacle and more about clarity, atmosphere, production limits, and how art functions inside a playable prototype.

Collaboration

During development, I mainly worked with Kevin on the engine map, level layout, and art assets. Our collaboration focused on how the playable forest scene could be structured, how the route should guide the player, and how visual elements could support interaction and readability. Through this process, I translated visual ideas into more practical engine-based decisions, such as terrain guidance, object placement, UI testing, and map readability.

Team Communication Challenge

One challenge I experienced during the group project was maintaining visual consistency across the team. I created art direction documents and visual rules to define the intended style of the game, but some character-related decisions were developed separately and did not fully follow the visual direction I had established. This created some difficulty for me later in production, because I had to adjust parts of my previous art direction when producing the final 2D character assets.This was frustrating because I did not receive much direct art feedback during that stage; instead, I often saw the final result after decisions had already been made. However, because this was a small team project and everyone had a limited workload capacity, I decided not to force major revisions. Instead, I adapted my own work to help the project move forward and reduce pressure on the team.

Reflection on Collaboration

This experience helped me understand that art direction in a team project cannot rely only on written documents. It also needs active communication, earlier alignment, and clearer checkpoints during production. As the only visual development member, I learned that I needed not only to create the art direction, but also to make sure the team understood how to use it. In future projects, I would set up clearer visual review stages before final assets are produced, so that visual consistency can be protected without creating late-stage conflict.

AI Usage Declaration

At the early stage of the project, I used Google Gemini as a visual exploration tool. I used the early GDD draft to generate possible visual directions, mood references, and atmosphere studies for The Verdant Trail. The purpose was to quickly explore different stylistic possibilities and support early art direction research, because visual development often requires a large amount of reference gathering and mood testing before a clear direction is established.However, after team discussion, some members raised concerns about the use of AI in the project. To respect the team’s decision and avoid confusion about authorship, I stopped using AI-assisted image generation after the early visual exploration stage. From that point onward, the project’s visual development focused on manual production, team discussion, and direct testing inside the engine.

Short AI Declaration Version

Google Gemini was used only during early visual exploration to help test possible mood and style directions based on the GDD draft. After team discussion, AI-assisted image generation was discontinued. From that point onward, the project’s visual development focused on manual production, team discussion, and direct testing inside the engine.