Stella Barbagiannis

Stella Barbagiannis

3D Work

Illustrations

Stella Barbagiannis

About Me

Hi! I'm Stella Barbagiannis, a Brooklyn-based game designer. I am passionate about shaping immersive stories that shock, repel, and enlighten, igniting a confrontation of the self by exploring taboo yet relatable aspects of humanity. My work employs themes of metamorphosis, girlhood, and otherness, experiences often accompanied by feelings of isolation or ostracization. Through games, I have discovered community and connection, which inspired me to embrace them as a medium to remind us that we are not alone in our shared obscurity.
I have recently graduated from Pratt Institute, earning a BFA in Game Arts.You can contact me at [email protected] or any of my social links below.

Stella Barbagiannis

Role: Lead UI/UX Design, Producer
Year: 2024
Team: Stella Barbagiannis, Tyler Zhang, Wilby Pham, and Cecelia Powell.
Programs: Unity, Adobe Photoshop, Maya, Substance Painter, Adobe Premiere Pro, Plastic SCM, Jira

Was it all just a dream?
Play as a narcoleptic whose nightmares are plagued by mistakes of his past. While you're awake, search through your computer to piece together what happened and discover information that will help you in your nightmares. While you're asleep, complete puzzles as you traverse through the levels of your consciousness. THIS IS A DEMO! Not all of the mechanics/puzzles are implemented. This was created as a proof of concept over the course of two weeks.

I worked as UI lead on this project and was responsible for designing the desktop UI. I wanted to create a sense of familiarity so the player could immediately recognize they were awake and on your computer. The 2D, first person view was chosen for continuity so the player knows they are still the main character, as well as differentiate between your dream and awake states. I also added a vignette/screen effect to further solidify that you're looking at a screen while also enabling a sense of unease, since modern computers are generally flat and don't look like this.

The UI includes the Notepad app that gets updated each time the player wakes up or solves a puzzle within the dream state. The player can also go through WhatsApp messages to learn about the MC's relationships with his mom, ex girlfriend, and friends. His open tabs on his browser also give context to his struggle with narcolepsy and frequent, lucid nightmares.

Stella Barbagiannis

Role: Game design, level design, 3D modeling, narrative
Year: 2023
Team: Stella Barbagiannis, Lilli Harris.
Programs: Unity, Maya, Adobe Premiere Pro, Procreate, Adobe Photoshop, Plastic SCM

"There's something in here with me...I can't see it but I know it's here."
This found footage, analog horror-inspired survival game will have you on the edge of your seat. Did you really see something? Or was it just a trick of the eye? Collect cassette tapes to discover what happened to those who came before you. Can you escape? Or will you share the same fate...?

Inspired by the concept of getting stuck in the backrooms, our objective for this project was to create a liminal space that the player would explore from the point of view of a VHS camera, mimicking found-footage horror media. I modeled game assets in Maya, programmed the AI for the enemies, implemented UI elements, worked on animations, and established the game loop. I also wrote the script, directed the voice acting, designed sound effects, and edited the game trailer in Adobe Premiere Pro.The enemies are invisible, reverse weeping angel-style boogeymen. Although unkillable, the player can defend themself by covering their eyes, as the enemies will not hurt them if the player isn't looking at them. To warn the player of their presence, I added footsteps that get louder as the enemies get closer and programed the lights to flicker if the enemy is near.untiitled.mov was created as a final assignment for our Coding II course at Pratt Institute.

Stella Barbagiannis

Role: Lead game design, programming, animation, 3D modeling
Year: 2023
Team: Stella Barbagiannis, Lilli Harris, Bee Wertheimer
Programs: Unity, Maya, Adobe Premiere Pro, Procreate, Adobe Photoshop, Substance Painter, Jira, Ink, Plastic SCM

Run a cozy potion shop!
Gaia's Brewery follows Emaline, a young nurse who moves from the big city to the countryside when she inherits her deceased aunt's potion shop. In this 3D, isometric crafting game, learn how to brew potions and help the people of Misty Hollow with their ailments.

This project was created as a joint final for my Coding III and Game Studio II: Narrative Design courses at Pratt Institute. As lead game designer on the project, I was in charge of programming the day/night cycle, as well as the brewing, dialog, and inventory systems utilising data-oriented programming and scriptable objects. I also edited the game's trailer in Adobe Premiere Pro and implemented sound effects I created.My team and I were inspired by "cozy" games, such as Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley; we used Caro Asercion's i'm sorry did you say street magic to assist in our world building and character creation processes.

Concept art by Lilli

Stella Barbagiannis

Role: Game design, level design, narrative, 2D animation, illustration
Year: 2022
Team: Stella Barbagiannis
Programs: Unity, Procreate, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Photoshop

Beware Black Annis...
Black Annis haunts the countryside of Leicestershire, living in a cave she dug out of the side of a cliff with her iron claws with a great oak tree marking its entrance; from its branches, she tans the skins of children and lambs she's hunted and eaten to patch together her cloak. This dreadful place is known as Black Annis' Bower Close.

In this 2D platformer, play as a lamb on the search for their girl, who was snatched in the night by Black Annis. Through two intense levels of gameplay, successfully navigate through dark woods and a deadly cave while evading enemy bats and the iron claws of Annis in order to safely return home!

This game was created in Unity as a final for my Coding I course at Pratt Institute. As this was a solo project, I was in charge of all aspects of the game design process, including programming, sound design, narrative design, and asset design. All of the 2D art in the game is my own, illustrated in Procreate and Photoshop.

Stella Barbagiannis

Role: Game design, level design, 2D animation, illustration
Year: 2024
Team: Stella Barbagiannis
Programs: Unity, Procreate, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Photoshop

Another day, another dollar.
You're late! In this infinite jumper inspired by Franz Kafka's novella, The Metamorphosis, play as cockroach Gregor Samsa trying to get to work after being mysteriously turned into a bug. Dash into your manager to destroy them, and dash again after to get an upward boost; collect money along the way to bypass the paywalls and beat your high score!This project is the third iteration of Metamorphosis-inspired games I've created.

ITERATION 1: BITSY

The first was a simple experimentation with Bitsy created as a 1-week project for my Games, Glitches, and Creativity course. I got a positive reaction from my professor and it inspired me to continue my exploration of classic literature and video games.

ITERATION 2: PYGAME

The second iteration of this project was Samsa Spring, the final for my Creative Coding course, where I learned how to use Python and Python libraries. I decided to create a simple infinite jumper, a metaphor for the demanding, never-ending climb of capitalism that dehumanized Gregor to the point of turning into a cockroach. This exercise was beneficial in helping me grasp Pygame and using Python in game development; before this, I had only ever programmed games in C#. However, I felt constrained by Pygame and knew I wanted to revisit this idea later.See my milanote board for the development process.

ITERATION 3: GET TO WORK!

A semester later, Get to Work! was created as a 4-week solo project for my Senior Thesis Development course. The assignment was to make anything we were interested in exploring for our potential thesis. I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to iterate on my Metamorphosis infinite jumper.I was also inspired by the song Cockroach Mentality by Gun; I wanted to experiment with BandLab and sound design to create an 8-bit, arcade version of the song to go with my game.

In this version, I added enemies, which is Gregor's manager demanding that he gets to work and scolding him for slacking. If you hit your manager, you die and the game is over. However, if you dash into them instead, then your manager dies, and you can hit the dash again to get an upward boost. Another mechanic I implemented in this version is collecting money and a paywall. This started as a joke with my professor but I ended up adding it; it received positive feedback from my peers, as it added a new incentive and made the gameplay more rouge-like.

One goal of this project was to develop it for mobile, which I unfortunately didn't get to during the span of the 4-week project. However, I plan to iterate on this project further and eventually make it available for mobile download.

Stella Barbagiannis

Cover artwork by Glenn Dean.

Role: Narrative
Year: 2023
Team: Stella Barbagiannis
Programs: Twine

A chance encounter can change your life...
In this short interactive fiction set in Wyoming circa 1890, play as Gabe Wesson, a solitary ranch hand who dreams of escaping his mundane, little life on Hobbes Ranch. One day, everything changes when a bloodied stranger tries to kill him.This project was created for my Narrative Design course and was my first time using Twine.

Stella Barbagiannis

Role: Producer, lead narrative design, level design, game design
Year: 2025
Team: Stella Barbagiannis, Lilli Harris, Vivian Sun
Programs: Unity, Maya, Adobe Adobe Substance Painter, Jira, Unity DevOps Version Control. Adobe Photoshop, Procreate, Adobe Premiere Pro

now available on steam!

Growing up is scary...
Phoebe is a thirteen year old girl who, on the day of her mother’s funeral, gets her first period. In the absence of a maternal figure, Dolly comes to life to help guide her human companion through the horrifying changes of girlhood. The story highlights not only the biological changes of puberty, but the emotional weight of navigating a changing body, isolation, and the grief of losing a parent; these stressors manifest through the environment to create a visceral, body horror experience.The initial idea for this project came to me as I was looking at my sock monkey my friend had made for me. I imagined him in a 3D platformer where you play as a doll with limbs you can swap out with found objects to traverse a landscape and solve puzzles. Around this time I recently watched the David Lynch film Eraserhead and was captivated by how Lynch portrayed his fears about fatherhood. I pitched this to my friend Lilli and we toyed with this concept, reminiscing on the feelings of anxiety and loneliness brought about by puberty. Eventually we scrapped the initial mechanic of detachable limbs for a more narrative-driven story that evolved into a tribute to our childhoods. We later recruited Vivian as we felt her creepy, surreal artstyle would help bring our vision to life.The first and second levels explore the experiences of getting your first period and relentless hormonal acne, respectively. Phoebe's insecurities consume her and take over her environment, altering it to reflect her distressed mental state. As the protagonist, Dolly, you traverse the treacherous, surreal landscape to pop pimples and avoid drowning in blood to help guide Phoebe through this emotionally confusing time. The third level reflects the distress an adolescent can feel when faced with familial conflict and isolation.

As the producer of this project, I was responsible for distributing tasks between my group members and making sure they got completed according to schedule; I did so by establishing a game development timeline with weekly goals to accomplish leading up to our showcase at GDC and final deadline. Once a week, my team and I would meet and discuss our progress and adjust weekly goals according to the feedback we received from playtests. If goals were not getting completed in a timely manner, I would assess the priority of any uncompleted task and then speak with the team and see if the task could be redistributed. Since the team was small, I wore many hats and also contributed to animation, level design, audio design, and UI design.As the narrative lead on this project, I was responsible for constructing the narrative arc and writing the diary entries that contextualized the levels. I also wanted the story to be clearly conveyed through the environment, since picking up the diary entries was optional. Therefore the level design had to be very intentional and convey narrative beats through the environment.

Narrative game timeline and some of my development schedule.

GDC 2025 playtesters & giving a talk at the New York State booth about our development process.

Concept art, character models, and cutscene art.

Early development screenshots.

Photos from Hexhouse playtesting event.

Stella Barbagiannis

Design

Paralía Body Logo & Apparel, 2023

paraliaswim.com

Paralía is a small, woman-owned and operated clothing business based in New York City. The brand's founder and creative director contacted me and asked to collaborate on a new logo for the brand that would be featured on tote bags and t-shirts. After iteration, we decided on an elegant, delicate pink bow that reflects the brand's artistic vision of empowerment through embracing femininity and girlhood. Paralía has been credited with pioneering the coquette bow trend beloved by fashion enthusiasts on social media.