Touch
This game was the second-year major project. The team consisted of around 5 artists, one of which was the project leader, and 3 programmers. The game aimed to be artistic, and it achieved this goal.
My contributions to the game creation were:
- 3rd person player camera
- Cinematic cameras
- Darkness snakes and walls (even the particle graphic)
- Programming for the cave entrance puzzle
- Programming for the crate puzzle
- Save / load system
- Various music / audio managers
- Collectibles
- Lamp post programming
- Mother’s power blast
- Other small contributions like extra colliders, some sound effects and shader tweaking
The game was developed using Unity 3D and programmed in C#. Some challenges included the camera’s collision with walls and having it rotate the correct direction when walking, and getting the darkness to grab the children. In the end, the darkness snakes activate large patches of darkness and inside these patches are 3 smaller snakes that launch out towards the characters.
I included this project in my portfolio because I put a lot of time and effort into the game; more than it would seem. This was due to my passion for the project. Things like the lighting and sounds on the crystals, the darkness and the camera system are all things that I am proud of and I had learned a great deal from these.
If I could do one thing differently in this project it would be to not put so much extra effort into smaller polish. In the end, the team leader thought I spent too much time making small tweaks that he didn’t authorize and I could have spent the time on other things. In the next team project I will only do what the team leader asks, even if I think the decisions are not of the best interest to the project.
Fun fact: The zooming back to the player after a cinematic camera was just a test using the same code that moved the camera, but it looked so good that we left it in.
Download Touch (1.4GB warning).
Source code available by request.
Filtrate
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQAHEkciMhw&w=560&h=315]
This was a game made in my first year at AIE. The game was a team effort, working with just 1 other class member and a single musician. It was made using XNA and C#. My team-mate, Jayden did most of the character actions, physics system, and level loading and my task was making all these loaded things look and sound good.
The following is a list of tasks that I completed in the project:
- Entire level editor
- Animation manager
- Screen effects
- Game and menu state system
- Sound manager
- AI for the “dog” enemy
- Collectible orbs
- Particle system
- Various level designs
- All artwork and sound effects
- Various small polishing
I chose this game because the game mechanic (changing dimensions to different colours) worked out really well. Another reason is because of the passion I had in the project. In addition to the programming, the graphics were made by me in Flash from scratch, and the sounds were all recorded, mixed and implemented by myself also.
The game also comes with a level editor which is both easy to use and was very useful. The editor saved us a lot of time that would have been spent creating levels that may have not been any good. We could also give it friends and family to make levels for us, some of which are still in the game. This shows that the editor is also useful to non-programmers.
If I could do one thing differently in the project it would be to outsource the artists. Despite the artwork passing in terms of working with the game, a proper artist could have done a lot better, especially with the menus. Another thing would be to delegate tasks better as I basically took over a lot of the work because I wanted to do it the way I wanted.
Fun fact: Sound effects were mostly made using a vacuum cleaner as a challenge I set myself and to prove a point that sound effects can be made in unusual ways and still sound good.
More about Filtrate and Level Editor.
Download Filtrate and Level Editor.
Source code available upon request.
Shadow Clone
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozlsE4idzpA&w=560&h=315]
This was a game made in an AIE game jam during my second year at AIE. The game was made using XNA and we had to do it in 48 hours. The game was a team effort between 2 programmers and an artist.
Some things that I worked on:
- Game and menu states
- Camera controls
- Level tile and HUD render programming
- In-game help text
- Explosion animation loader and renderer
- Sound manager
- HUD font renderer
- Square highlight art and programming
- Sounds and the explosion animation
I included this game here because I believe it was a really interesting idea for a game and that it is a real achievement having something that good be made in 48 hours. The game ended up winning the “best game” from the game jam.
Fun fact: Even though we had 3 of us in the team, none of us were even there the entire time, and we still managed to get the game polished.
Source code (maybe later).
Blitz Basic games
The following were made before studying at AIE using the Blitz Basic 3D engine. They show off some of my creative ability, ambition, and use of some game-play mechanics.
UFBDO
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNYhYJYaCYA&w=560&h=315]
Stellar Mozzie
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er0VfHYqX9w&w=560&h=315]
Lavarock Hopper
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRXLCx19vuA&w=560&h=315]