Portfolio

The projects that best reflect my work.

Forge N’ Finance:

• Originally envisioned as a “Blacksmithing simulator” by me and my team.

• Made for PC.

• Made during the Fall semester, of 2019.

• I was one of the designers, and I was specifically in charge of QA, sound design, trailer editing, etc.

• My teammates handled the art, documentation, programming, marketing, etc.

• Our intent was to create a game that allowed players to take on the role of a blacksmith, and for that experience to be as realistic as a team of 5 could make it, with a functioning economy system, weapons selling better based on how well they’re made, and more.

  • The gameplay would consist of several mini-games, where the player would take the four pieces of the sword, to increase their quality, before assembling the sword in order to sell it, hopefully at a profit, and buy more materials.

• As a team member, I did everything possible in the roles I listed above, as well as aided with the programming, level design, and character movement.

  • We had been tasked with making three separate games, before choosing one to move forward with. I was the narrative designer for all three of the games, but we decided that narrative was not necessary for this game.

  • I focused my efforts on QA, where I made the forms, documented the results, and updated the team on what needed to be fixed, what worked, etc.

  • When an issue was too small for other members of the team to worry about, I would focus on fixing it, so they wouldn’t have to worry about it.

• Our team was small, but we managed to accomplish a lot. We all worked together extremely well, given what we were trying to accomplish.

• The game did not move forward, as we had, in an early stage of development, opted to leave combat out of our game loop until the second semester, as we would never have the time to tackle it, but it was decided that, that was too large a section of our game to not have even started, so we were unfortunately cut.

  • As a result, only the trailer is available for me to show.

  • I do think the trailer speaks volumes towards our efforts as a 5 person team, over a few short months, with various other classes and responsibilities..

• Below is the link to the three narrative outlines I created for the team . These were abandoned very quickly, as we abandoned two games early, and abandoned the story for this game not too long after.

  • They’re not fleshed out at all, but they give you ban idea of what we were trying to do.

  • Clicking the button below will take you to a google folder containing the story ideas, if you feel like looking at them.

  • Below the link to the stories, is the trailer.

Market Manipulation:

• A game where you manipulate the market value of items, based on how often you win while using them, and how often other people lose while using them.

  • It looks at how an MMO economy might function, with people seeing low-tier stuff beating high-tier stuff, and being made to think they’ve been given a buff, resulting in the in-game price rising, allowing you to buy low, and sell high.

• Made for PC.

• Made during the Spring semester, of 2019.

• I was the sole developer for this game. I made everything. The graphics, the animations, the AI, everything, within a span of 1 month, for my final project in one class.

• My intent was to create a game where you are able to actively raise the price of certain in-game items, by winning fights using those items, while also being able to lower the price of other items, by beating enemies who are using those items.

• The gameplay consists of managing your health and money, while you fight enemies, by clicking on them

  • You also click to move, while using “A'“ and “D” to rotate the camera.

• In the end, I think this turned out very well, given how much I had to do for it.

  • I had to code, and give a price-tag to, each individual item in the game, to make the systems work together properly.

  • I had to individually make each armor piece, name them, color them, animate them, and give them their own UI.

• I also had no experience with Blender, or with animating 3D models, so I had to learn how to animate using a 3D modeling software I wasn’t familiar with, on the fly.

  • Blender was necessary, as it was better for animating and everything else I needed.

  • My unfamiliarity is why the pant-legs don’t animate so well with the legs.

• But outside of the pant-legs, I think this game is a great showcase of my general skills, when it comes to game design, outside of narrative.

• The button below, will allow you to download and look at my Design Document for this game, which is a Microsoft Word Document.

  • Below the Design Document button, is a button that will take you to a google folder, where you can download the .zip file of the game, if you want to play it.

  • Below that, is a button that will take you to the Itch.io page, where you can download the executable of the game.

  • And at the bottom, is a video showing gameplay from the game, if you don’t want to play the game, but would still like to see how it looks and plays.

Camera Shy:

• A puzzle “find it” game, using VR technology, where you roam around a few different creative environments, searching for different objects hidden throughout the environment, and take pictures of them, to either add to your wall to progress, or add to your photo album back home.

  • Camera Shy is a VR game, made to be a twist on the “Where’s Waldo” type of experience.

  • The game is all about using several different magical, interchangeable camera lenses, to see the world around you, from various different perspectives. The lenses allow you to see some objects more easily, or allow you to see them at all.

  • However, the lenses are just an aid. The player must still solve small puzzles, and search around the environment manually, to find all the hidden objects.

• Made for PC.

• Made during the Spring semester, of 2019, through the Winter semester of 2020.

• I, along with half a dozen other people, joined Camera Shy half-way through its development, back when it only had two lenses, and one almost finished room to explore. With our combined effort, we and the original team were able to speed up the development of the game, so that now we have a finished hub area, two finished areas, four camera lenses, and a photo album.

• My main job on this team was to run QA for the team.

  • I did all the necessary paperwork to get us signed up once or twice every week.

  • I created a QA form that asked every question the team wanted answered, as well as any question I thought might be useful to ask.

    • I wanted to get as complete an idea of what testers thought as I possibly could, so I made it so the QA form would naturally separate people based on what grade they were in, whether or not they had played our game before, and whether or not they’d played a VR game before.

      • This was extremely tedious, but it allowed me to get the most useful QA results possible for my team, so I always did it.

  • I would go through the build, right before every QA, and re-examine every question, to make sure it was still relevant to the current state of the game.

    • If not, I changed it, or removed it. I also added new questions when necessary.

  • After every QA, I would go through the responses, and create a presentation with them, so that during the next in-person team meeting, I could present the data to my team in a way that was the least time consuming, yet still allowed them to easily digest the information.

• While my main job was QA, and I made sure to do everything I possibly could to fulfill that job for my team, my major was game design, and so I took every chance I could, to assist the team with design.

  • There weren’t many instances where they needed my help, since I could only help when I wasn’t busy with QA stuff, which wasn’t very often, but when they did, and I was available, I made sure to be there.

• Our main intent was not to create a puzzle game, since we were working in VR, and solely focusing on things like that, in a new medium, that was still not fully understood, seemed like a bad idea. Instead, we wanted to create a find-it game, with bits of puzzle elements, like the hidden object pop-up books a few of us had enjoyed as kids.

• The gameplay consists of moving around the environment, either physically, or using the VR controllers, in an attempt to find hidden objects, using a combination of the camera lenses at your disposal, the field of view of the camera itself, and your deductive reasoning as a player.

• In the end, I think this turned out very well, given how much we all had to do over the semester.

  • The entire team, consisting of a dozen people, had only a few months to build on the mechanics that had been established in the previous semester.

  • Not only did we achieve that goal, but we also communicated extremely well, allowing us to never go overboard with the mechanics we wanted to add, or the systems, or environments we wanted to add.

    • The whole team was able to show restraint, and respect the vision of the original team, which I’m personally very proud of us for managing to do.

• However, there were some hard setbacks my team were faced with during production. Nothing caused internally, but rather internationally. COVID-19 set my team back dramatically.

  • We had spent two weeks creating and testing a PAX version of our kitchen level, so that we could bring it to PAX, and show the gaming world what we’d done. We were fully signed up had some teammates going to PAX, everything. But then all VR games had to be shut down due to infection concerns.

  • After that, the team got completely separated, as we were all on Spring Break, away from school, when the quarantine began. Most of the team, including me, did not have access to our own VR headsets, so this made things extremely difficult.

• However, these setbacks did not get to us. We as a team came together, and created a game plan for how we would do things, moving forward.

  • I spent the next few weeks working with professors, to set up a new QA system, where students would sign up to download games.\, to test them, and they would have the devs on voice chat to answer any questions.

  • Since I didn’t have a headset, and obviously couldn’t test the game with other people, even if I did, working with my school to set up a whole new QA system was all I could do, to make sure my team got to test all the stuff they were working on.

• It was, and as of writting this, is, a tough time, but me and my team are here for one another. We are constantly talking through discord, the school-provided chat, google hangouts, and more. We are a team, and we’re proud to be one.

Below, you can watch the trailer for Camera Shy: