Game maker enjoys work with local studio

Alan Blouin admits he has always had an artistic, creative side.

"You could say I was the kid in school who was always standing in the corner because I had been caught drawing too much," Blouin said.

Blouin went from being told his art would never take him anywhere to being a successful lead artist at Las Vegas' Westwood Studios, just a few miles away from the native Canadian's new home in the northwest valley.

Blouin was still just a kid when his mother bought a computer and he started creating video games.

"I remember those big manuals where you would have to type for hours just to get one dot to move across the screen," he said. "Things were limited back then."

After art school and working for several years for a smaller company in Vancouver, Blouin is moving past the limits of other media he worked in previously. In school, he participated in a four-month intensive program on cartooning, and even had some of his work displayed on "Batman: The Animated Series" and the animated version of "Beetlejuice."

But Blouin, 30, said he has found less restrictions in his current position than in his former passion, animation.

"Cartooning really attracted me then and I became enthralled with it quickly," he said. "I really got into classical animation and studied people like Preston Blair of Disney.

"But there is instability in that profession. You never know when something's going to come up so people work like dogs when it does. And in cartooning, every line you draw is a done deal. It's too restrictive. I like to able to go back and remake things."

Blouin started working for Radical Entertainment in Vancouver, which included working on game projects for Nintendo. His first project was "Terminator."

After a few years, Blouin was ready for a change.

"I was kind of stuck doing the same thing, sports product, and I wanted to do something else," he said. "I had played Westwood games forever, so I submitted a resume and they really rolled out the red carpet for me. I think what makes this company superior to others is that they really pay you to do your job and take the other stuff off your shoulders, so you can focus on what it is you like to do."

Blouin moved to Las Vegas in 1998 and was hired to oversee the artistic direction of a new, multiplayer online role-playing game, "Earth and Beyond." Set to be released this winter, the game has proven to set new standards for its creators and game testers.

"Most games are linear in that you go from point A to point B," Blouin said. "This is not. You can go whichever place you choose. You're immersed in this massive universe and you don't even realize it until halfway through. And things are always progressing, whether you're playing it or not."

The programming for "Earth and Beyond" is stored on Westwood's servers, not on hard drives. So characters in the game (representing players online from all over) will retain all their qualities even if the player is not signed on. The possibilities within the game due to all that player interaction are infinite.

Taking things to new levels tends to create new technological and artistic demands for Blouin, who is heading up a 10-man creative staff for the game.

"You always want to dazzle people with the artwork," he said. "But I'm kind of a gamer, and it's good to know what's good or bad about a game. We just shoot for what we love to play because we know the public will love it too.

Westwood will be holding a large public testing of "Earth and Beyond" during the summer.

As the lead artist for the project, Blouin has his hands in everything. And that's the way he likes it.

"There's complete freedom," he said. "To be able to express yourself 100 percent, there's nothing nicer than that. It's very creative."