Design
Design
Design
Design provides such a great oppurtunity to get your hands dirty and make some cool things!
Design provides such a great oppurtunity to get your hands dirty and make some cool things!
Design provides such a great oppurtunity to get your hands dirty and make some cool things!
Experimental Games
Experimental Games
Short Experiments that try to do something new!
Short Experiments that try to do something new!
The Coconut Experience - A platformer that tries to journey into the challenges of navigating life between the USA and India at vastly different stages, all while grappling with a sense of belonging.
The Coconut Experience - A platformer that tries to journey into the challenges of navigating life between the USA and India at vastly different stages, all while grappling with a sense of belonging.
Copper Love - Take control of Copper as you find the love of your life to become an alloy with. This visual novel requires quick reactions and quick typing speed in order to choose your options. React fast or you might miss your chance to find true love!
Copper Love - Take control of Copper as you find the love of your life to become an alloy with. This visual novel requires quick reactions and quick typing speed in order to choose your options. React fast or you might miss your chance to find true love!
Cook 4 Love - You find yourself at the mercy of an unseen God who wants you to make it food
Cook 4 Love - You find yourself at the mercy of an unseen God who wants you to make it food
Level Design and Break Down
Level Design and Break Down
Portal 2
Portal 2
Ala's Awake
Ala's Awake
Ala's Got a Gun
Ala's Got a Gun
Ala's Escape
Ala's Escape
Click on the Levels to Play them! Click Below to see the Design Process!
Click Below to see the Design Process!
This document shows the initial design and concept of the levels I had originally planned out. This tries to explain what I thought of when I was designing these levels.
This document shows the initial design and concept of the levels I had originally planned out. This tries to explain what I thought of when I was designing these levels.
This shows some of the bugs and flaws found during play testing of these levels. It explains where it found the error and how it proceeds to hamper the game experience.
This shows some of the bugs and flaws found during play testing of these levels. It explains where it found the error and how it proceeds to hamper the game experience.
What this report does is go in-depth of puzzles and bugs found. It also has notes of what I feel on these levels and where I personally think I could have done a better job and opening up about my experiences on the project
What this report does is go in-depth of puzzles and bugs found. It also has notes of what I feel on these levels and where I personally think I could have done a better job and opening up about my experiences on the project
Warcraft 3
Warcraft 3
Developer Walkthrough of the Level
Developer Walkthrough of the Level
This started off as an experiment to try out Warcraft 3's Level Editor and grew into quite the adventure that I wanted to complete in 1.5 months. You play as Valtire in the middle of a prison escape after being wrongly imprisoned by one of the 4 Guardians of Fartos.
I quickly became attuned with the editor after playing around with it and viewing a few tutorials which gave me enough confidence to want to make my own level focusing on Dialogue Choices with Puzzles sprinkled throughout.
This started off as an experiment to try out Warcraft 3's Level Editor and grew into quite the adventure that I wanted to complete in 1.5 months. You play as Valtire in the middle of a prison escape after being wrongly imprisoned by one of the 4 Guardians of Fartos.
I quickly became attuned with the editor after playing around with it and viewing a few tutorials which gave me enough confidence to want to make my own level focusing on Dialogue Choices with Puzzles sprinkled throughout.
Making a simple map gave me a clear idea of my map as to what I need to do while breaking things out in sections that could be easily swap in and out if I didn't have time or players don't like a section.
Making a simple map gave me a clear idea of my map as to what I need to do while breaking things out in sections that could be easily swap in and out if I didn't have time or players don't like a section.
I made a Task Breakdown to keep myself on track for my target goal of 1.5 Months and to make sure that I gave myself enough time for polishing and playtesting.
I made a Task Breakdown to keep myself on track for my target goal of 1.5 Months and to make sure that I gave myself enough time for polishing and playtesting.
I made Difficulty Curves to ensure combat sequences weren't too difficult by giving enemies threat levels according to player level and breaking down the level by time intervals to see ebb and flow of difficulty in the level.
I made Difficulty Curves to ensure combat sequences weren't too difficult by giving enemies threat levels according to player level and breaking down the level by time intervals to see ebb and flow of difficulty in the level.
Cool Feature #1 - Dialogue Choices
I love Dialogue Choices so when I saw that I could advance dialogue and had buttons I knew I could implement a dialogue system. For those who don't know the Editor does not have a way in editor to make dialogue-based choices, so I had to jerry rig one together using a wide variety of variables arrays, and skirt around some of the basic implementations of the editor.
I love Dialogue Choices so when I saw that I could advance dialogue and had buttons I knew I could implement a dialogue system. For those who don't know the Editor does not have a way in editor to make dialogue-based choices, so I had to jerry rig one together using a wide variety of variables arrays, and skirt around some of the basic implementations of the editor.
Cool Feature #2 - Frost Bite
Frostbite is another mechanic I may have spent a little too much time on, but I think it turned out to be a super interesting and unique mechanic. I wanted the final boss area to feel unique and different compared to the rest of the game, and I didn't have a lot of environmental hazards. So, I decided to kill two birds with one stone.
Frostbite is a mechanic that forced players to keep moving from fire to fire to stop the timer, that would deliver damage if it ran out. What I quickly realized happened in playtest is that players would use the strategy of triggering enemies by entering their trigger area and running back to the fire to fight.
It seemed too bring as a strategy and there was no real incentive to move so I made a hidden timer as well. If the player stands in the fire area too long the fire permanetly goes out. This makes it so that players had to keep moving and fighting as they made their way to the final boss battle.
Frostbite is another mechanic I may have spent a little too much time on, but I think it turned out to be a super interesting and unique mechanic. I wanted the final boss area to feel unique and different compared to the rest of the game, and I didn't have a lot of environmental hazards. So, I decided to kill two birds with one stone.
Frostbite is a mechanic that forced players to keep moving from fire to fire to stop the timer, that would deliver damage if it ran out. What I quickly realized happened in playtest is that players would use the strategy of triggering enemies by entering their trigger area and running back to the fire to fight.
It seemed too bring as a strategy and there was no real incentive to move so I made a hidden timer as well. If the player stands in the fire area too long the fire permanetly goes out. This makes it so that players had to keep moving and fighting as they made their way to the final boss battle.
Cool Feature #3 - Puzzles
I thought having Acton throughout the game would be overwhelming and boring after a certain point. I knew I wanted to create a whole experience, so I would need to slow down the pace a little bit, so that ended up with me creating puzzles. Now the puzzles themselves aren't too difficult, but it's a great chance for players to recoup from their damage of previous battle encounters while also giving them breathing room as well.
There are three main puzzles. The first puzzle was a music puzzle that would play a series of notes and you would need to copy them.
The second one is a riddle that players must answer, if they get it wrong then it's a small combat sequence, but if it's right then they get to advance forward. It was initially three riddles, but because there's no place to find answers it felt unfair to the player.
The last puzzle is lightening puzzle that would have lightening striking platforms in a certain order that the player would need to replicate.
I thought having Acton throughout the game would be overwhelming and boring after a certain point. I knew I wanted to create a whole experience, so I would need to slow down the pace a little bit, so that ended up with me creating puzzles. Now the puzzles themselves aren't too difficult, but it's a great chance for players to recoup from their damage of previous battle encounters while also giving them breathing room as well.
There are three main puzzles. The first puzzle was a music puzzle that would play a series of notes and you would need to copy them.
The second one is a riddle that players must answer, if they get it wrong then it's a small combat sequence, but if it's right then they get to advance forward. It was initially three riddles, but because there's no place to find answers it felt unfair to the player.
The last puzzle is lightening puzzle that would have lightening striking platforms in a certain order that the player would need to replicate.
PixArena
PixArena
Gameplay Footage of PixArena
Gameplay Footage of PixArena
PixArena is a game jam produced game where the constraints where to use Contrust 2, Pixel Art, and the theme was "Close but Far Apart". In this game players don't shoot at each other but shoot at obstacles that can hurt the other player, but be careful you only have two lives!
I served as a designer and engineer for this game. I came up with the initial idea and helped bring it to life in-engine!
PixArena is a game jam produced game where the constraints where to use Contrust 2, Pixel Art, and the theme was "Close but Far Apart". In this game players don't shoot at each other but shoot at obstacles that can hurt the other player, but be careful you only have two lives!
I served as a designer and engineer for this game. I came up with the initial idea and helped bring it to life in-engine!
Due to it being a 1v1 competitive game, I made the level in such a way that obstacles were spread out and both the players were equ-distant from each other.
Due to lack of time and being able to polish breakable walls, we swapped out some mechanics for the three mentioned above. Burn would Kill on Impact, Freeze was make Players Controls feel slippery making them prone to fall out, and Crush also Killed.
Final Positions of Characters
Final Positions of Characters
From the limited playtests we could do, this layout seemed like the one that gave a balance of wins for both players. This promotes an always constantly moving style which is the fast frantic fun we were targeting. The players being in opposite corners was intentional so the middle area would be where most conflicts happening meaning most of the triggerable items are locked there.
The spikes above Pink Character are also intentional so Pink is required to move but has time to see. If Blue wants to shorten the time by shotting the spikes right above Pink's spawn, they have to go on the ice platform giving Pink, the opportunity to attack by shooting the ice platform and pushing Blue to the Fire Platform. This map promotes freezing and pushing as one of the more core strategies, but there are plenty of obstacles around and with the frantic pace the game has it doesn't become a dominant strategy.
From the limited playtests we could do, this layout seemed like the one that gave a balance of wins for both players. This promotes an always constantly moving style which is the fast frantic fun we were targeting. The players being in opposite corners was intentional so the middle area would be where most conflicts happening meaning most of the triggerable items are locked there.
The spikes above Pink Character are also intentional so Pink is required to move but has time to see. If Blue wants to shorten the time by shotting the spikes right above Pink's spawn, they have to go on the ice platform giving Pink, the opportunity to attack by shooting the ice platform and pushing Blue to the Fire Platform. This map promotes freezing and pushing as one of the more core strategies, but there are plenty of obstacles around and with the frantic pace the game has it doesn't become a dominant strategy.
My Expertise
