Group Projects
Five game projects developed by me and my talented classmates over the course of two years.
Walter Volt
About
Walter Volt is a first person shooter where you play as a disgruntled wizard who sets out on a mission to kill the bigoted mayor of Chrometopia.
Summary
Project Breakdown
Project Number: 6
Project Time: 15 Weeks Half-time (on-going)
Team: 3 Level Designers, 6 Programmers, 5 Game Artists, 2 Procedural Artists
Game Engine: RatTrap (custom engine)
Platform: PC
This project gave us the oppertunity to further use and develop the engine we were using for the previous project, which let us further get more comfortable and capable with the engine. We also got to request more features which helped with both the people using the engine and people playing the game.
Because this project is first person, I had to take in account how the player sees and moves about in the level, which was a fun oppertunity to play around with level design techniques and ideas. We also decided to use a single scene for all levels, which led to us having to focus on optimizing each levels with LOD zones to load and unload objects in the scene.
I focused mainly on the second level, which is set in a factory the player must navigate through, which let me try different ways of breacrumbing the player throughout the level. I also acted as the tech designer for this project, which consisted of using the visual scripting system to create scripted events and interactables, as well as communicating with the programmers about what we wanted to add to the visual scripting.
While the project is still on-going as I write this, the main takeaway I have from this project is adapting to the situation and working with what you have if requested features and assets don’t make it into the project.
Spiteful Hangover
Spiteful Hangover is a top down hack n’ slash dungeon crawler where you play as a viking who has awoken from a drunken slumber and must stop an army of undead and Hel herself.
About
Project Number: 5
Project Time: 14 Weeks Half-time
Team: 3 Level Designers, 6 Programmers, 4 Game Artists, 2 Procedural Artists
Game Engine: RatTrap (custom engine)
Platform: PC
Project Breakdown
This project spanned the entirety of the autumn semester, which gave my team a lot of time to plan out the game and the different locations and levels. It also gave us a lot of time to fill out each level with setdressing and iterating on the layout of each level.
While we worked on this project, our programmers built out a custom engine for us to use during this project and future projects. With the experience of the previous projects, it was great to collaborate with the programmers to add features we wanted to help with our workflow, such as a terrain that can be shaped to fit each individual level.
Due to unfortunate circumstances that affected the team, the group in its entirety came together to form internal task-forces with the issues we were facing. This let us get fix the various issues efficiently and get the game ready to ship within set deadlines.
The whole project reinforced my belief that communication and flexibility is key to making and shipping a game.
Summary
Chef Jeff: Scraps of Hope
Chef Jeff: Scraps of Hope is a top down adventure game where you play as chef who must fight his way through dreams in order to wake up.
About
Project Number: 4
Project Time: 8 Weeks Half-time
Team: 2 Level Designers, 6 Programmers, 4 Game Artists, 2 Procedural Artists
Game Engine: The Game Engine (TGA’s in-house engine)
Platform: PC
Project Breakdown
This was the second project the team worked on with The Game Engine, which gave us a leg up on workflows and adding features we wanted. Working around the limited camera angles was a fun challange, as many of my original plans for my level had to be reworked on order to accomidate the camera angle.
Because the game genre was adventure, I wanted to create a feeling of exploring and a sense of what might happen later. An example of this is how I used foreshadowing to show the final arena the player must fight in from the start of the level I mainly worked on.
There were no major hurdles that occured durign the development of the game, let us create the game without having to change the scope of the game.
The thing I took from this project is the importance of communication between disciplines in order to fix a workflow that suits the project.
Summary
Dejected
Dejected is a 2.5D platformer where you play as two siblings who must navigate and evade mysterious government agents to make their way back home.
About
Project Number: 3
Project Time: 12 Weeks Half-time
Team: 2 Level Designers, 5 Programmers, 3 Game Artists, 3 Procedural Artists
Game Engine: The Game Engine (TGA’s in-house engine)
Platform: PC
Project Breakdown
This project was the team’s first time working with a custom engine, which came with its own unique and fun challanges. Due to the engine acting as a framework, a lot of communication and was required to add all the features we wanted in order to create the game we had planned.
Transitioning my skillset from Unity and Unreal to The Game Engine was a lot smoother than I had initially thought, as many of the features worked similarly to how other engines handle them. With a bit of re-learning shortcuts and keybinds, I could use The Game Engine effectively.
As the project went on, the group were behind schedule with the game, which led to us having to shrink the scope we had for the game. While we wanted to have everything we had planned for the final release, this smaller scope let us finish the game on time with the circumstances we found ourselves in.
The most important lesson for me was how communication and scope is very important when working with untested software and workflows, as well as the importance of changing scope when necessary and adressing bottlenecks.
Summary
Checkmate
Checkmate is a puzzle game inspired by Lara Croft GO where you play as a king chess piece who must navigate through underground ruins and overcome the foes along the way.
About
Project Number: 2
Project Time: 6 Weeks Half-time
Team: 2 Level Designers, 5 Programmers, 3 Game Artists, 2 Procedural Artists
Game Engine: Unity
Platform: Mobile
Project Breakdown
This was my first time working on a mobile game, which was a rewarding challange. I also acted as project coordinator for this project, which let me further develop my skills as a problem solver and team leader.
Coming up with fun and intuitive puzzles was an incredibly fun process, from using paper prototypes to building all stages in Unity. Due to the many concepts the team came up with I had a lot of puzzles I could set up for each level.
It was also an interesting challange to work around the limitations of mobile platforms, as much of the game had to be optimized in order to work on phones and tablets.
The biggest takeaway I had after this project was the importance of working around constraints and limitations to make a game better.
Summary
Last Unit
Last Unit is an endless runner inspired by Race The Sun where you play as a robot tasked with finding the optimal spit to plant the last living organism on earth.
About
Project Number: 1
Project Time: 6 Weeks Half-time
Team: 3 Level Designers, 6 Programmers, 4 Game Artists, 2 Procedural Artists
Game Engine: Unity
Platform: PC
Project Breakdown
This was my first project at The Game Assembly, and it gave me a good base insight on how multi-disciplinary communication and workflow works similarely in the industry. For this project I took my idea for a layout to a playable and balanced level.
I worked closely with artists to come up with an aesthetic and unique assets for my level. I also worked with programmers to implement special features that only appear in my level, specifically the rollling boulders that can kill the player.
Beside my level design duties, I took on the role as project coordinator for this project, I was responsible for handling communication and helping out with any issues that occured during development and communicating with our teachers.
The most important things I learned from this project is the importance of communication in the team throughout the development of the game.
Summary