Kinect Game · 2010–2014
Dance Central
Harmonix's Kinect dance series. I led art on Dance Central 2, which sold about 2.04 million copies worldwide.
Dance Central 2 was a full-body Kinect dance game built to make real dancing readable and rewarding. It was a D.I.C.E. finalist for Family Game of the Year and a Spike VGA nominee for Best Motion Game.
Progress showed up as visual energy. Stages evolved, characters changed looks, and the presentation built as players hit their best streaks, with meters and UI kept to a minimum.
My Role
I led the art team on Dance Central 2. I set visual direction, defined the performance-driven look, guided character and outfit evolution, and oversaw gesture-driven UI. I kept art, design, animation and engineering solving choreography readability, camera framing, UI clarity and motion-tracking limits together.
What I Took Away
We chose a light story and a hand-crafted cast of dancers over a character builder. Each character was built to demonstrate choreography clearly, which helped players learn the moves.
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