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Jungle Jim (2025)

Game Design

A game needs a cohesive planning stage to get a good start to development. I conducted market research and created a concept with a hook that would resonate with my target audiences. Following this, I continued to develop the idea for a month before starting to prototype. Throughout development, I have continued to iterate on the design and conduct playtesting sessions. I also have written numerous devlogs detailing my thought processes.

• GDD (In-Progress)

• Gameplay Loop Diagram

• Devlogs Collection

• Playtesting Charts

Project Management / Leading

This project was my first time assembling and leading a team for game development. I created a discord server and online drive to organize discussions and development. This worked very well as everyone was able to quickly find what they needed or reach out to the right people. Though it wasn't all so easy, there were many challenges I faced. Since this was a student-led project, every collaborator was not set to a strict timeline and would help at their own pace. This made it difficult to properly manage the overall time of the project, and often left me with pieces to put together. This also increased the frequency I needed to follow up on progress, which would often cause a bit of strain. In the end though, I think everything has turned out well!

• Devlog: First Time Leading

Level Design

I was responsible for designing and blocking out the levels for the game. The tutorial level serves as a playground of sorts for the player, allowing them to learn the mechanics of the movement in isolated challenges that required them to execute the moves. Other levels develop fun mechanics and platforming challenges. I conducted numerous playtesting sessions for every level, and used iterative loops to implement analysis results.

• Devlog: Jungle Jim Tutorial

• Top-Down Level Graphs

Movement Mechanics

I was responsible for designing and programming the dozens of movement mechanics in the game. I paid particularly close attention to game feel, and studied many 3D platformers such as Mario Odyssey to nail an effective feeling to the character! The game is suggested for controller, but it is also able to be played with the keyboard. Because of this, I created separate execution logic in areas depending on the control method in order to improve game feel in both mediums.

• Early Reel: Gameplay / Movement

Character Modeling and Animation

Originally I had planned to find a classmate to take care of the modeling and animation, but I was unable to. Because of this, I was responsible for modeling, texturing, and animating several characters in the game. The protagonist, "Jim", has over 50 animations that I had created and implemented into the game using a variety of techniques such as Blend Spaces, Control Rigs, and Blendshapes. The result turned out great! It was a lot of fun figuring out how to create animations that informed the player about the current state of their character. For instance, when performing a "Flip Kick", Jim is unable to grab the wall for a brief moment afterwards by design. To show this in the animation, I had Jim enter a cannonball shape until he was ready to grab the wall.

• Artstation: Jim Modeling and Animation

Complex Camera System

Out of all kinds of games, I believe that 3D platformers have the most complex camera systems. This is out of necessity, as the player is constantly actively controlling their character as well as moving the camera. I studied Mario Odyssey intimately, and recreated many of the systems implemented that created an intuitive and self-autonomous camera system. The result is a camera system that is intuitive to control and self-autonomous in nature. You can read about my camera system in the devlog below.

• Devlog: Jungle Jim Cam System

Level Art

I was responsible for the environment art for the first two major areas of the tutorial level. Instead of using textures and models from asset packs, nearly every texture and model was created myself. Through this process, I learned about using vertex painting and instanced meshes in my workflow to increase the quality while decreasing the time expense. Another tough lesson I learned was just how long it takes to actually fill in a level!

Cinematics

Created a modular and scalable cutscene system to be used throughout the entire game. I created an "order" system that would step through orders determined through the details panel, and orders are also able to be skipped by player input. Compatible with level sequences. This system was created so that gameplay elements such as interactable dialogue could play throughout cutscenes and be iterated on quickly. I also created the cinematics themselves for the game.

Game Loop Diagram. Click image to see full size!

Riverside Ruins level design. Click to see presentation with a video going through the level.

Blockout of the level "Lilypad Labyrinth" as of 1/18/2025.

Playthrough of the tutorial level "Riverside Ruins" as of progress at 1/18/2025.

Very early gameplay reel created for my universities GDC sponsorship application.

Very early tech reel created for my universities GDC sponsorship application.

Maya Arnold render of the Run Fast animation.

Maya Arnold render of the Slide Jump animation.

Jim's model topology.

Evolution of Jim's model created entirely in Maya.

Body UDIM.

Cosmetics UDIM.

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Pizza Panic (2024)

Game Design

As all group members came up with ideas, we all combined them into mechanics to use in the gameplay. I decided which of these mechanics would be included in the overall system of the game as I designed the game loop. I was also careful to take into account the project deadline and constraints, as well as how much time each of us would be able to put into the project before the deadline was up. This influenced many decisions, such as using frightening mannequins with characteristic cosmetics for every character to save time.

• Post-Mortem Devlog: What We Did Wrong

Core Gameplay Systems

I was also responsible for designing and programming the base delivery systems of the game. The player would receive randomized delivery instructions that consist of a color, number, and shape. Each delivery instruction is a clue for which door in the establishment the pizza should be delivered to. After receiving an instruction, the player would have a timer displayed to complete the delivery. If the player fails to deliver on time, the hungry customer will exit their room and hunt the player down. If the player succeeds, they receive their next instructions. It was a lot of fun to figure out how to get the doors and delivery instructions to generate properly, and the final system works well.

Level Design

I laid out the floor plans for the apartment complex in the game. While we originally planned for four floors, we had to cut two of the floors to meet the deadline of the project. I designed the level to consist of many turns leading to straight hallways. We needed many hallways to feature our many doors, and I included turns to increase the chances of the player turning a corner and being caught by surprise with a seeking killer.

Intelligent A.I Seeking Behavior

I was responsible for programming the A.I of the killers, and created a system for them to intelligently wander the halls to seek the player. Points where placed along the halls and areas of interest which the A.I would travel along and pick randomly between the closest 3 points- excluding their last few visited points. When spotting the player, the A.I will take chase until the player sneaks into a hiding place.

Full feature playthrough.

Post-Mortem video where I talk about the project.

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Caislean: Paranormal (2022)

Game Design

Though I only had 4-7 hours max a week to work on the project, I would often concept and design many aspects of the gameplay on the back of receipt paper at work. During the day, players would place equipment and traps in preparation for the night where they would be attacked by paranormal entities. The extent of my work only reaches a single day and night segment, and I mostly focused on balancing the night mechanics and how responding to enemies would affect the players resources and information.

• Post-Mortem Devlog: Lack of Intent

• Devlog: Player Resources and Enemies

C# Scripting

C# was used for every element in the game, and I wrote dozens of thousands of lines of code. This was my first project where I really utilized C# extensively, and I learned a lot from it.

Survival-phase featuring all enemy types.

Prep-phase equipment placement tutorial.