Winx Club Series (Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance)

Winx Club, a European phenomenon, a group of fairy girls with amazing magical powers and attitudes to match. Winx Club: Quest for the Codex for Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance is a side-scrolling shooter with six mini-games. The sequel Winx Club: Mission Enchantix adds new gameplay and enhanced minigames.

Winx Club: Quest for the Codex (Nintendo DS)

Winx Club: Quest for the Codex was my first published Nintendo DS game. Although the DS is similar in architecture to the Game Boy Advance, there were some new things to think about, such as the dual screens and 3D capabilities. The main component of the game was a side scrolling shooter, with 3D animated characters and multi-layer tileset based backgrounds. Aside from the main shooter game, there was a collection of minigames themed to match each protagonist characters persona and a 3D texture based outfit customization tool.

During pre-production I came up with the initial concept sketches for how the gameplay would look for the side scrolling shooter and mini games. I provided the art direction for environment backgrounds, and created all of the art for the user interfaces and custom mini game designs for each of the six fairy characters. I also reduced 3D models and pre-rendered many 3D character animations so we could swap in those elements when necessary. I was challenged by making sure all 3D studio Max rendered character animation frames were not only matching the correct lighting/quality of the Nintendo DS 3D engine character, but also able to remain within the confines of a fixed sprite bounding box and aligned properly with the 3D version of the character. In the end, I managed to devise an easy to automate way to match the 3D character to its corresponding 2D sprite frames.

Winx Club: Quest for the Codex (Game Boy Advance)

Winx Club: Quest for the Codex for GBA was developed alongside the DS version. Again, the main gameplay was a side scrolling shooter with completely 2D pre-rendered 3D animated characters and multilayered tiled backgrounds. Additionally, there were a different collection of minigames themed for each fairy girl which required all new assets.

Winx Club: Mission Enchantix (Nintendo DS)

Winx Club: Mission Enchantix was a direct sequel to our first Winx game. I took on the same respnsibilities with art, but I was able to work more efficiently and as a result put out higher quality. I also took on the task of creating real-time 3D magic spell effects for all characters.

Winx Club: Quest for the Codex and Winx Club: Mission Enchantix was developed by Powerhead Games and published by Konami.