University Games
BrickBreaker 4Ever
Intro to Games Programming
During my first year at the course, we were introduced to programming in unity using c#. I found this subject very interesting, and when it was time for our submission, a basic brick breaker game, I wanted to add more to it to expand on what I had learned.
In the initial brief, once all bricks were cleared, we had to make them respawn. This gave me the idea to increase the speed at which the ball moves after each clear to create a more replayable environment.
I also experimented with other mechanics, such as a life system to add consequences to missing the ball and a high score function that displays your best score on the main menu and saves the data even after closing.
Mental Monsters
Integrated Project 1
For my first group project, we were tasked with making a game related to health that would be playable in a museum.
I was in charge of the overall design of the game, which included the mechanics, UI and narrative. We decided to create a 2D platformer where you, as the player, would fight manifestations of mental health as monsters as if you were battling them in your head. We wanted the gameplay to match the mental issue that you were currently fighting, with depression being a black void with a big eye that slowly sucks you in, ADHD showing different emotions coming out of the brain and making frantic attacks at the player and Anxiety who looks like a nervous fly who stays away from the player and throws attacks from afar.
As I enjoy writing lore and narrative for games, I decided to attempt to give the game a loose story. From gameplay, it appears that you are going about your normal routine, like getting ready, going to class and visiting the comic book store, whilst having to fight these monsters. But the screens in between levels give context to what is actually happening, a boy wishing he had fought these monsters before it was too late. This allowed us to give more meaning behind our game whilst providing related helplines at the end.
Half-Life: Shipment
Games Programming 1
For my Games Programming 1 class, we were tasked with making a basic FPS using the tutorials provided. The task allowed for additional points for including features not specified. I wanted my game to be playable, with different weapons, enemies and a loss condition. I started work on three separate weapons that would test my programming knowledge, the first being a pistol that could charge up shots and fire them all at once, which displays on the HUD.
The second is a shotgun with a grappling hook attached; this was fun to play around with, even if it was a little janky. The last weapon I integrated had two separate abilities; it was an assault rifle that could change from single, burst and auto, as well as the ability to slow down time.
I finally made a ton of voxel assets like gun models, scenery and enemies using MagikaVoxel and built up a basic scene based on the map Shipment from the Modern Warfare series. The enemies were based on headcrabs and zombies from the Half-Life series, hence the name. I used navmeshes and different forces to make the zombies move, and headcrabs jump. Overall, this was a fun learning experience, and I enjoyed making a game from start to finish for the first time.
Divided Fighters
Integrated Project 2
Our second group project consisted of giving us a brief that asked us to create a multiplayer game. After discussion with our team, we wanted to create something unique, and the idea of having the two players collaborate whilst being separate was interesting.
We played around with different themes but eventually landed on fantasy, as it fit our core mechanics better, having the two main characters be a warrior and a sorceress. The level was split up into two sections, divided by and obstacle, stopping the players from entering each others areas. They would fight off waves of ghouls which slowly charges their ability meter. The two abilities given can either benefit the other player, or save yourself, but if both bars are filled to the maximum, then the ultimate ability can be used to wipe all enemies off the board. This creates a resource management mechanic where players must be decisive in what abilities they can and should use.
Poverty RPG
Serious Games Design
One of my classes in university was Serious Games Design, which taught up the fundamentals of creating a serious game, and what that means. For our project, we made a text based game that worked off the theme of poverty.
You play as a young boy, going through a school day, with one of the key factors being how little money you are given at the start, and how you choose to use it. The game offers a branching narrative with choices than can alter your ending. Its meant to show the difficulty that young children in poverty have to go through, and the battles they constantly face due to their environment. I was in charge of the narrative design of the project, writing up all the prompts and creating a storyline for the game to take place in.
Armchair General
Games Pre-Production & Integrated Project 3
The last group project we were tasked with during university, we were given the opportunity to work with a real client from a range of different backgrounds. Our game's brief was about the usage of diegetic game elements which was given to us from 'NoCode Studios'. My role on this project was the gameplay and narrative designer, being in charge of the story, mechanics and level design. We had numerous ideas but eventually landed on the concept of a video game leaking into the real world, bridging the gap between the game world and reality.
Due to our designers knowledge of old turn based strategy games and ability in pixel art, we decided to set the game in the mid 80s, featuring an old war game that would leak out into the players living room, giving them a real time perspective of the battle field. The furniture layout of the living room would be represented by different buildings and hazards in the game within the game. This would allow the player to interact with the game in a unique and diegetic way, allowing the player to push furniture in order to give their units an advantage.
Sadly, because of technical limitations and issues with our development team, we had to reduce the scope and focus solely on the 2D version of the game, which is polished and available to play.
Personal Games
Floral Flourish
Minecraft Mod
For this project, I and a friend decided to create a mod for Minecraft as we are both very familiar with and fond of the game, giving us a good starting base to begin with. Our initial idea for the mod would be to look at areas of the game that we have found problems with throughout our years of experience, and attempt to address them in a way that parallels the concept the Mojang designers are going for.
We wanted this mod to be larger in scale than that of a basic quality of life changes but smaller than that of a real Minecraft Update. This allowed us to work on a little bit of everything to flesh out the identity of the mod. We initially wanted to theme the mod around the idea of an 'Unreal Reality' which we considered locations that are real but have some fantasy aspects to them.
