.jpg "Andres Gutierrez")
Bio
Andres/Andrea Gutierrez was born in Austin, Texas and moved to San Antonio, Texas in 2008. Joining the WAM program in 6th grade, and the HIVE program in high school, they’ve been a part of SAY Sí for many years. After graduating from the International School of the Americas, they will be attending the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York and will study film and animation.
Artist Statement
When the pandemic began, it put me in the worst mental state I’ve ever been in. Every ounce of creative energy I had was gone. But one thing that helped me improve my mental state was playing the fighting game Guilty Gear Xrd Rev2 with some of my friends. The game gave me something that I really needed, motivation. The game gave me motivation to improve, and made me recognize my failures as learning experiences instead of just a failure. The summer of 2020 allowed my love for fighting games to establish, and when it came time to brainstorm ideas for my senior project, I knew I wanted to make a fighting game. Many people had their senior projects based around how this past year has changed or affected them, but after spending a year with worsening depression caused by the pandemic, I knew I didn’t want my project to be somber or depressing. My main goal with my game Rocket Science was to show my love and passion for fighting games and 2d animation. The way I designed the characters, animated certain moves, the fonts I used, everything about the game reflects my passions and my tastes. But development wasn’t very smooth. I started development back in August when I started designing the first character. His design wasn’t finalized until the end of October. The animation roughs were finished during Thanksgiving break, and once finished, a traumatic event occured, removing all motivation I had to work on the project for months. Zero work on my project was done until mid March, where out of nowhere I suddenly regained my motivation and immediately returned to animating. Development on Rocket Science wasn’t the smoothest, and content that was planned to be finished by the deadline, like the second character, were sadly not complete. But this project wouldn’t have even been in a playable state if it wasn’t for the free program called MUGEN and all of the resources made by MUGEN creators over the past 20 years. Having very little knowledge on programming, MUGEN made creating the game a possibility, and I can’t thank the members of the MUGEN forums enough for all of their resources and tutorials. I hope to continue development on this game for a little while longer, adding new characters, stages, music, and even a story mode. Even if you don’t like fighting games, I hope you enjoy Rocket Science!
