Student Projects
Dedicated Technical Game Designer on Project: Mechula
Project Mechula is my and 3 other team members’ final year project. The game is a Survival Action RPG where you play as a cybernetically enhanced vampire who is constantly bleeding out due to not being adapted to the enhancements they have been subjected to.
My tasks as the dedicated programmer included the entire code base of the game. Additionally, I have designed and reworked all of the combat system by myself. So not only can I manage taking up multiple roles and work areas, I was also responsible for designing the systems and mechanics of the project in a way that could work within Unity. This project is a thorough example of my capabilities as a Technical Game Designer, one who can translate the design team's ideas realistically to the programming team, and work on both sides at the same time.
Solo Development for a Level of The Magnus Investigations
Using The Magnus Archives as a source of inspiration for a project, I created a narrative where the son of the main character from TMA carries on an investigation to find out what happened what happened to his father, and encounters the supernatural up close.
The level is made in Clickteam Fusion 2.5. The idea behind the level follows the fear of being lost being brought alive as an entity. The park itself represents the whole entity, however this is reflected as a wraith-like being in the game. The wraith spawns 10 seconds into the level and can be warded off, however, every time the player does so, the spawn timer of the wraith is brought down 1 second. As long as the wraith is present, the player also loses Sanity, which serves as the player's health bar. The player has to solve the puzzles dotted along their path while warding the wraith off, as well as trying not to lose all of the Sanity. Essentially, the level turns into a times puzzle, and the faster and faster appearances of the wraith brings forth an unexpected stress, which is the intended Feel of the game. While not thoroughly expanded upon, I am quite proud of the design of this level.
Documents
Game Design Document for The Relentless Hunter
The Relentless Hunter is a Rogue-like where a legendary hunter is cursed by his arch-nemesis, a demon who he had been trying to hunt for years. The curse causes the Hunter to forget all of his memories and knowledge about his hunts, and reviving him at a rundown town, damning him to endless deaths.
At the time of building this document I was playing Enter the Gungeon quite a lot, and it has inspired me on this work. The Hunter carries an empty journal, similar to the Ammonomicon, but instead of guns, all of his previous hunts are locked within the journal, named as the Unknown until they are hunted again.
Pitch Deck and Game Feel Strategy Document for Allyn
Allyn is a tower defense game where Game Feel is the main focus of the systems within the game. As an assignment we were tasked with creating a pitch deck and creating a strategy document breaking down a specialisation through the pitched game.
I have been fascinated by Game Feel ever since I had learned about it, and on top of reading Game Feel by Steve Swink I have chosen to specialise on it. This document contains some of my proudest ideas I ever improved on during my studies.
Level Design and Lore-Dialogue Documents for Lands of Alberion
Lands of Alberion: A Tale of Unity follows the story of a young Human girl, Merolone, born into the desolate lands of the now devastated race of Humans. In a world where everyone receives Blessings from the Avatar of their land at some level, Merolone is without a Blessing as the Avatars of her land are no more. You play as Merolone, and uncover her fate alongside her.
The level design document in this project is not a white-boxing project, it covers the setting and world design of the game. I have planned deep into the relationships and politics of the different people living on the continent, made sure that there were no ends left open. I had to create Merolone’s story and the world’s setting hand in hand, as one could not be made to fit the other.
Numeric and Balance Design for a Rock-Paper-Scissors inspired Online Battle Arena
For this numeric design task I have thought of redesigning the “Trinity”, the class system of “Tank, DPS, Healer” and pit the three in a way where one could counter another, and be countered by the third one.
Initially, the three set classes system did not work, so I created a system where players have the freedom of equipping different classes of gear instead. While choosing all of their gear under a single “class” can make a player quite strong against another class, facing an opponent with a playstyle of the third class can put them at a disadvantage. And so, combining different gear classes in any way the player wants gave a great amount of agency into the players’ hands.
To further support this, a single-player introductory mode (very similar to For Honor) exists with enemies equipped with only a single gear class, showing the pros and cons of each class and how to fight against them. All of this information can be interacted with on the Google Sheets link.