During development, this game was called 'Sacrifight' but around the time of its release it got renamed to 'Trials of Tonalli'. After attending a game recruitment fair on campus, I gave them my resume and joined the team as an artist and animator.

I was in charge of making the fourth character for the game, the other three being mostly done already. Presented a few pencil sketches and then started on the digital rough drafts based on the given character descriptions and personality.

They were really enjoying the designs I made, at times the social media profile pictures was the character I made. Creating the eight directional animations and the various action sets for each iteration of the character, something like 1,500 to 2,000 animation frames were made. Lots of work but manageable.

That was until the middle of the quarter rolled around. When the campus was closed from the pandemic and other bad news in its wake. I had a choice to make, should I try and finish the last designed character's animations or leave the team. If I stayed and didn't finished in time, the game would be in trouble and that wasn't something I wanted them to go through.

We came to a decision. One of their characters would fill in the last character slot since that work was already done and mine would get pulled. It was a hard but a smart move to play.

The team was very understanding with me leaving and I have no regrets with the project or working with them in general. It ended up being a pretty cool multi-player game with a generative terrain to navigate.

Outside of the planned fourth character, some of my additional work for the team did remain in the final game so it wasn't an entirely lost experience on either side.

Maybe on my own time I'll come back to this character. For now traces of it exists on the internet and in my own archives.

- Mirs (written June, 2023)