Seth Pinto
sethpinto23@tamu.edu
214-686-2268
3048 Balsam Ct, Bryan, TX 77807
Each game on this page is playable and can be found by pressing the “View on Itch.io” buttons.
Game Description:
You are Alex Sophia Strong, a passionate gamer on a single-minded mission: get your initials at the top of the leaderboard on Hi:Core, your favorite arcade cabinet. However, the cabinet has become sentient and doesn't want her initials on the leaderboard.
The sentient cabinet is trying to prevent Alex from getting the high score by repeatedly adding new rules/gameplay elements in a desperate attempt to cause a Game Over. Will you get a high score?
Competition: TAGD Fall 2024 Game Jam
Theme: Motion Commotion
My Roles: Game Design, Art, Music + Sound
Intro Cutscene:
I created this intro cutscene frame by frame in Aseprite. The goal was to give the player a brief glimpse of a story to make the game feel more complex.
Additionally, I made all the game's music in Audacity. The goal with the sound was to give the player a sense of 1980s nostalgia.
Dialogue Portraits:
I made these portraits with the intention of using them to give Alex's dialogue more personality. The first is her winking, and the second is her idle animation.
Gameplay Animations:
I created the ship and its animations for the in-universe arcade game "Hi:Core". This ship is directly controlled by the player during gameplay. The first is the dash animation; the second is the dash recharge animation.
Game Description:
Alex, a cowgirl from the Wild West, is driven from her home by a mysterious threat and accidentally falls into a portal. She lands in the "Timeless Frontier," a saloon that exists outside the laws of time and space, where she is given a multiverse-traversing device by a mysterious inventor known as The Engineer. Can Alex find her way back home?
Competition: TAGD Fall 2025 Game Jam
Theme: On the Flip Side
My Roles: Game Design, Art, Music + Sound
Alex Idle Animation:
I created this idle animation with the intent of learning/improving at sub-pixel animation. As a result, this animation feels very smooth.
Game Background:
The multiple layers in the background were for a parallax effect. While the picture doesn't show the effect, it captures the game's overall aesthetic.
A Sketchy Tavern Brawl
Game Description:
A Sketchy Tavern Brawl is a reverse-rogue-like card game, where you start with a full deck, but each card you use gets permanently destroyed. Can you manage to defeat all enemies and defend the tavern with the cards you have?
Competition: Chillennium 2026 Game Jam
Theme: Nah, I'd Win.
My Roles: Game Design, Art
Card Art:
For this game, I decided to experiment a little with the art style. Since our idea was to make a card game, I wanted to draw all of the assets on paper, then scan them in to use as game assets. I'm very proud of the card designs I came up with during the roughly forty hours I had, and think the game has a very unique art style. The cards shown here are: Reaper, Overkill, Vial of Acid, and Forgery.
Game Description:
Travel through your wildest dreams!
Competition: Chillennium 2025 Game Jam
Theme: In Plain Sight
My Roles: Game Design, Art, Music + Sound
Enemy Animation:
The enemy depicted here is a variant of our "alien" enemy as seen in the nightmare world. Given the whole "nightmare" + "alien" vibe, I decided to base the enemy on the xenomorphs from the Alien franchise.
Game Description:
Truth. (pending) is a bureaucratic satire set in The Commonwealth, the great world nation that cares deeply about its citizens and the truth.
You are the newly appointed Chief Editor of The Ledger, the Commonwealth’s most influential (and only) newspaper. While it used to be a bastion of truth, it lost its way due to the agitator that was the previous editor. Now that he’s seen the error of his ways, it’s now The Ledger’s chance to regain its previous greatness thanks to the Journalistic Guidelines set by the Ministry of Truth.
Competition: TAGD Spring 2026 Game Jam
Theme: Get With The Times
My Roles: Game Design, Art, Music + Sound
Character Portraits:
For this game, I decided to have multiple characters, each with their own personalities. Ultimately, we had to cut dialogue due to scope creep, but the portraits made it into the game's final build. From left to right: Winston Pike, Charles Bellweather, and Alex Belle (I decided to finally give her a last name).
Game Description:
You are Jack! A man who is wasting away in the corporate rat race who has begun to daydream of his escape! Hang tight with Jack as you platform your way through his work day and if you're lucky you might just find a way out. Join Jack on his adventure to cope with his corporate dead-end job, but beware, escapism through daydreams isn't always so easy to achieve! Platform your way through this game with skill and with a little luck you can connect back to nature and hang in there.
Competition: Chillennium 2024
Theme: Hang In There
My Role: Sole programmer
Reflection:
This was the second game I had ever made, and I'm proud of how it came together. As the only team member who knew C#, I had to write all of the code for the game. Of course, we had decided to make a physics-based game in forty hours, so it ended up being a very stressful weekend for me. I learned a lot about working under pressure from this experience, as I managed to submit a functioning build an hour before the deadline.
Miscellaneous Game Art
Sewer Background Asset:
This background was made for an unfinished sidescroller/beat-em-up game. The rock textures on the wall took many iterations to get right, as I wanted them to be both subtle/not distracting and easily identifiable as stone. I feel like I found a nice middle ground.
The rock texture under the sewage took far less time, as I started with one of the earlier revisions of the wall texture. I figured it would look nice with some "water" above it, so I added the green "water". The pipe in the foreground was going to be used for a parallax effect.
My plan for the pathway was to use a cement texture, but that fell through when the game was essentially scrapped.
Alex/Player Animations:
While some of these animations were made/used in Lucid Reckoning, our Chillennium 2025 project, the remainder were created for this same scrapped game.
In this game, you fight and traverse environments using your trusty plunger, so I felt the need to make the animations as serious as possible. Hence why I based the plunger walking/running/dashing animations on a katana.
Traditional Art
My Life But . . . Still
This still life combines objects representing the media and creative experiences that have most influenced me artistically. I included my Nintendo Switch OLED, Playstation 5 Dualsense Edge controller, favorite films, and the first place TAGD trophy I received for Hi:Core to create a composition that reflects both my personal identity and creative aspirations.
My composition integrates reflective and matte surfaces of rubber, glass, and plastic. To represent the shiny glass of the Switch, I created a smooth, dark surface that contrasts with the white of the reflection from the flash lighting. To create the round curves of the controller and trophy, I used graduated shading with darker shades towards the edges, allowing highlights to define the curves. Softer, blended shading helped create the round buttons of the Switch and controller. By varying the values, I was able to give the objects a sense of dimension as opposed to appearing flat. The overlapping arrangement allowed me to create depth and movement, while guiding the viewer's eye through the composition.
Rather than treating the objects as isolated studies, I approached this piece as a visual self-portrait. The drawing connects my interest in interactive art and storytelling with the physical representations of those interests. Through this process, I strengthened my understanding of value, form, and composition.
This first progress shot shows my original sketching of the subjects, which primarily is represented by outlines of each object.
This second progress shot shows the beginnings of three-dimensionality through the use of shadows and highlights. At this point, I had not yet created darker values.
This third progress shot demonstrated the beginnings of differentiation between light/dark values, addition of shadows, and further definition of contours and round surfaces.
Origami Birds in Flight
This piece examines how shape, composition, and color influence emotional tone. I have always enjoyed origami, which is the origin of the subject of this composition. I used angular origami-inspired forms, sharp edges, layered transparency, and a restrained, moody palette. The angular forms suggest folded paper and controlled design, while the drop-in color technique of the watercolor introduces unpredictability and motion. The off-center cruciform structure and overlapping geometric birds are designed to create tension, hierarchy, and spatial depth. I intentionally worked with a restrained palette of indigo, cadmium orange, purple, and sap green dulled with alizarin crimson to create a contemplative mood. The cadmium orange and slight hints of new gamboge bring warmth into the palette. Because the warm colors are surrounded by cooler, muted tones, they are intended to feel like flashes of energy rather than constant brightness.
I created this piece, my first exploration in watercolor, as part of my effort to deepen my understanding of traditional media and incorporate those principles into future game development work.