EIDOLON

Eidolon is a visual novel I worked on in 2025 as apart of a Game Jam hosted by Michigan State University's registered student organization Spartasoft. Working as the only artist on a team of five with a 72-hour deadline, my passion as a 2D artist was poured wholeheartedly into this project. Working closely with the Lead Programmer Ojas Kalra and Narrative Lead Blake Coleman, I spent countless hours (as well as few late nights) to create a cohesive visual style that would both suit the story and implement well into the Unity game engine. As such, Eidolon highlights my skills as a 2D character artist, a 2D environment artist, and UI artist from concept to implementation into Unity. Excitingly, this rigorous work paid off, as Eidolon was voted the "Best Art Style" award among nine other submissions in the Spartasoft '25 Game Jam.

My passion for this project extends far past the 72-hour deadline for this February Game Jam, as I am now currently engaged with my original team to create a fully functional and well-developed version of this game. I am now working to implement many of the ideas our team first envisioned when starting the project. For example, I am currently engaged in creating multiple character sprites for the original three characters to give each one different facial expressions and body language, further bringing to life the personality of each cherished character.

While the original version of Eidolon has a bug that occurs early game due to a programming error in the dialogue options for the visual novel, you can still get a sneak peek into the art direction, implementation, and overall visual feel of the game at the following link: https://colem570.itch.io/eidolon

I, along with the rest of my team, are very excited to continue on with this beloved project, and I cannot wait to bring the fully finished (functional) project out to play.