The following projects are all from my time at the graduate program FIEA at UCF from August 2012 to December 2013. These projects are listed here as a historical reference of my experience and as time passes will reflect my current skill level less and less.
DARTS: An Assembly Game
September 2012
This game was made using Easy 68k. It uses fixed point math to calculate velocity and gravity. The only goal is to hit a red circle with the dart.
STAR WARS SCHMUP
November - December 2012
This is a twin stick shooter developed by Evan Cookinham and myself for the final project in our FIEA Programming 1 course. He created the framework, base classes and their generic functionality, and interface between OpenGl and DirectX while I created the 4 AI types, the score and health systems, and the menus.
4 AI types:
1. Stationary Turrets shooting with a small % error on the aiming
2. Enemies that attempt to dodge the player’s fire while swarming the player slowly (Brown ones)
3. Enemies that swarm the player quickly (Tie Fighters)
4. Deathstar which tracks the player and shoots at him in a cone
INTREPID
January 2013 - February 2013
Intrepid was a capstone game being developed by myself and 13 other FIEA students. While it did not survive Vertical Slice, it was a wonderful learning experience. I created the companion AI, which utilizes a custom pathfinding system to avoid terrain and stay close to the player while still feeling like it is traveling with the player and not simply following. Additionally, I developed the game camera. The camera avoids clipping the terrain while allowing the player the flexibility of adjusting the camera to view puzzles.
HeartForge
January 2013
HeartForge is a gamejam game developed for the 2013 Global Game Jam in Unity. The game is a sidescrolling platformer where the speed of the game is based on the energy of the player. I assisted the team by modifying the character controller to handle the side scrolling nature of the game and to have hooks for the speed system.
Baby Rambo
April 2013
Baby Rambo, a Binding of Isaac clone, was a game developed by a team of 19 programmers. It was a test of the data driven game engine we had all be separately been working on up until that point. The Baby Rambo engine used the best pieces from everyone’s individual engines. On this project, I managed the other programmers and oversaw quality assurance and bug fixing.
GRAPPLE
March - July 2013
Grapple is the capstone game I worked on after Intrepid was cut. It is an action/adventure game about mechanic who is attempting to save her beloved home from the Destrozaur, a mechanical menace. The project has 17 members. For this project, I have worked on creating a checkpoint/respawn system, resolving camera clipping issues, integrating animations, and designing and implementing the Destrozaur mechanics.
MEOW MEOW SPACE FORCE
Meow Meow Space Force is a 2.5 D action puzzle game developed in Unity for iOS and Android devices. MMSF is a combination of the classic games “Chain Shot!” and “Space Invaders.” It was developed over three and a half months (preproduction in July to release in October). For this game I designed and programmed the primary mechanics, the power ups, the tutorials, and balanced the score requirements of the levels. Meow Meow Space Force is no longer available on the play store or iOS store
All of the following games were created over separate 2 week periods between August and December of 2012 and each followed a specific theme. Additionally, each game was developed with a new team, all of which had 4 or 5 members.
Theme 1: FUN
Game: Irene the Iron Dust Bunny
This game is about keeping Irene (upper left) from hitting any of the objects in the environment for as long as possible by placing magnets at key points in the environment. The longer Irene survived, the more points the player received. The team for this game was composed of two designers, two programmers, and one artist. For this prototype, I implemented the initial physics system used (with values being tweaked by a designer at a later point) and the win/lose conditions.
Theme 2: Story
Game: High Tide
The story of this game was about a small crab saving their young from the rising tide. This was portrayed by having the goal of the game be to collect a certain number of eggs before the timer ran out and without dying. The team for this prototype was 1 designer, 2 programmers, and 2 artists. I implemented the collection mechanic within the game and the in game UI.
Theme 3: Emergent Gameplay
Game: Mass Affect
With the theme of this round being emergence, the team eventually decided on a dungeon explorer starring a physics manipulating wizard. The team this round was 2 designers, 1 programmer, and 1 artist. With this being the case, I implemented the UI, player controller, the mechanics for the 3 spells, and the menu.
Theme 4: Social/Mobile
Game: Unywaji
Unywaji is a pass and play game that combines the whimsical nature of paper airplanes and jenga (not our best idea) with a mature twist: upon hitting a target, the player must do what the target says, similar to drawing a card in Ring of Fire. The team on this game was made up of 2 designers, 2 programmers, and 1 artist. I created the target building system and the random generation of challenges.
Theme 5: Polish
Game: Monster Pain in Your Highness
Round 5 was interesting in that we chose a game from a previous round and spent the 2 week period attempting to improve upon the original game. For this challenge we chose Pain in Your Highness. With this game we had very specific goals: Port the flash game to a Monster Media TV, add more power ups, incorporate the theme of the game more thoroughly, and rework the points/power up reward system to be simpler to understand and let the player use it to their preference. On this team there were 2 designers, 2 programmers, and 1 artist. I reworked the reward system and implemented the functionality of the new powerup. Due to modifications to make the game playable on a Monster Media TV, no download is available. Below is a before and after video: