Stellar Door Studios is an independent game development group based in Frederick, MD. As a creative team, we've developed a number of small game projects over a number of years, and taken on a varity of design and development projects including 3D modeling and animation, film production, musical composition, and more.
“Bound” is Stellar Door’s first film project, created as an entry for Frederick’s 72 Film Fest, a contest that asks teams of all experience levels to produce a roughly 6-minute film in just 72 hours. Based on a prompt provided by the contest, “Fear of Spiders,” we created an imaginative 2D animated film based on our team’s own dreams and memories of arachnophobia. All illustrations, animation, musical composition, audio, and editing were completed in 72 hours. The film was screened on Oct 12-13, 2018 at Frederick’s Weinberg Center for the Arts, and won Best Amateur Film, in addition to receiving three additional nominations, including Best of the Fest.
Water on Mars is Stellar Door’s second film entry created for the 72 Film Fest, a contest that asks teams to create a short film in 72 hours, with a contest-provided prompt. Water on Mars is a loving tribute to team-favorite David Bowie, telling a story of a water-scarce future in space, and the freaky space journey that would spark a glimmer of hope in a space bandit. Tasked with meaningfully incorporating an image from a previous year’s film, Stellar Door was provided with an image of a cowboy drinking at a bar, with a gun to his head. Our team transformed this prompt image into a space-western, complete with hand-fabricated stop-motion puppets, a 3D-modeled stylized setting, and 2D illustrations and animated assets. The film includes an original song, invoking the Ziggy Stardust-era 70s Bowie sound, including original lyrics and vocals.
A young girl sets off one evening to collect fireflies, but as the darkness settles, she discovers she has lost her way in the forest. She finds herself guided only by the light of the fireflies she collects in her jar — but she will soon discover that the more light she collects, the less she wants to see the dark things lurking in these haunted woods.
Will of the Wisps is a spooky fairytale game of both exploration and escape, created as an entry into Ludum Dare 40, a 72-hour game development contest with the theme: “The more you have, the worse it is.”
Arms’ Reach is that classic love story about a soul-devouring tentacle monster, and the vampire princess that loves him. Each search for the souls of the unwary warriors that have come to slay them in a desperate bid to free themselves from their sprawling dungeon prison.
Abandoned amidst the junk of a yard sale box, the lonely GameBox is feeling unwanted and old. And as he sits there, he wonders if there’s still a future left for him and the games he loved to play. Until a smug kid, and his even more unbearable mePhone, happen along and insult his honor. But he won’t be discarded. He won’t be forgotten. GameBox sets out on an adventure to prove to the other devices of this cul-de-sac that you far from Obsolete.
As a bizarre project (intentionally, we swear!) in service to the Ludum Dare 41 theme, “Combine Two Incompatible Genres,” The Last Word combines the chill of galactic strategy with the fast-paced thrill of… reading? It’s the genre mash-up that action gamers have (not) been clamoring for: the Real-Time Strategy Visual Novel.
Take on the role of Human Legion Captain Fureus Maximus as he commands the last embattled warriors defending a planet long ago deemed lost.
