Alex Crane Portfolio
Personal Projects
In addition to the breadth of Alex's work experience and hackathon experience, he has also worked on several side projects that do not fit neatly into either category.
Amber Waves of Games & Flyover Indies
Alex is currently a co-founder and organizer for Amber Waves of Games, and an organizer for Flyover Indies. These two groups are game development collectives focused on connecting indie game developers in the Midwest United States, a region typically lacking in game development opportunity. For these groups, he has been the organizer for many Global Game Jam events, many Ludum Dare events, and the "Game Development World Cup" by Game Jam+, which is a developer organization centered in Brazil that reaches out to developers worldwide for their competition.
Love & Tenacity
Created in 2018 for Alex's wedding. Love & Tenacity tells the story of their relationship, timeline, and the trials they faced navigating our country's immigration process to make their wedding possible.
Playable link: https://axelancer.itch.io/love-and-tenacity
Squigglybit & No Lives Left
Alex was a co-founder of Squigglybit, a Kansas City-based game development collection. Alex served as the project lead for the main game being developed by this studio, during which he managed a team of over 30 designers, engineers, and artists.
This game was called No Lives Left, and was a meta imagining of what would happen if your games kept on going without you after you left.
In No Lives Left, the main character returns to their favorite childhood adventure game, only to learn that the game world has become glitched and is on the verge of falling apart. Because of this glitch, the newfound mortality of its denizens has given a sense of identity to these once-static characters. Role reversals of tropes are common (such as the villain deciding to give up their villain role). It is up to the player to either "fix" the world, or decide to keep it the way it is. After all, doesn't mortality give life meaning?
Art
Alex was a member of the National Art Honors Society in school, with advanced placement art classes, and has had work displayed in art galleries in downtown Kansas City. He has created art using a variety of media, including acrylic paint, oil paint, cast aluminum, welding, and more. His art has generally been made with a focus on bright colors, abstraction, fantasy elements, and the union between man and machine.
