Games

JellyCar 3

About:

JellyCar 3 is the third installment of a casual game created by Tim, my boss at Disney Mobile. It is also the first commercial game I have worked on. The first one was created solo by Tim, released for free, and was quite the hit with over 6 million downloads on the iTunes App Store. The second one was picked up by Disney and released for $0.99 and has done very well. Tim was given a team for the third one (which was essentially me, though we are growing now), and our focus for JellyCar 3 was to take out all of the extraneous stuff from JellyCar 2 and refocus on making the controls better and the core game more fun. JellyCar 3 is a simple game with deep gameplay that we hope will be enjoyed by millions! As is the case on mobile platforms, we will continue to update JellyCar 3 for as long as we can!

My Role:

This was my first game working for Tim and Disney Mobile. My role on this game was to do what needed to be done. Since the tech team was made up of only Tim and I, I had to touch almost all parts of the code. I started off with UI work, as is often the case with programmers new to an engine or framework. From there, I went to gameplay support tasks like writing code for non-core gameplay elements (the car editor/selector), SDK integration (Game Center, Facebook, In-App purchase, Push Notification, etc.) and core-tech (reusable UI Widgets, batch drawing system). Being part of such a small team, I also played a supporting role in some design decisions, though the core of the game was designed and implemented before I ever came on. I'll play a larger role in design for our future projects.

Platform: iOS

Links: website | download | video

Devil's Tuning Fork

About:

Devil's Tuning Fork was IGF 2010 Student Showcase Winner!

What if you saw the world with your ears? Devil's Tuning Fork is a first-person exploration/puzzle game in which the player must navigate an unknown world using visual sound waves. Inspired by M.C. Escher's classic optical illusion and the echolocation of dolphins, Devil's Tuning Fork allows the player to explore a new mode of perception through sound visualization.

My Role:

Project Lead/Tech Lead. As the project lead, I was in charge of keeping the individual disciplines on task and the development of the game in a constant state of forward motion. As the Tech Lead, I handed out tasks to the tech team and acted as an integrator of sorts, making sure everyone's code fit together and operated without causing problems or crashing the game. I was also repsonsible for implementing some of the larger systems of the game (animation pipeline, integrating the engine's implementation of vertex buffer objects, etc.)

Platform: Windows

Links: website | download | video

Celestial Clash

About:

Using the earth as their battle arena, players are given the choice of choosing between the god of fire's fire dragon, the god of water's flying manta, the god of wind's air griffin, and finally the god of earth's golem carried into battle by enormous birds. Players then take to the sky in a Star Fox 64 style dog fight, making use of obstacles, power ups and super powers to once and for all prove who is the best.

**In order to play this game, you need two players and two USB Gamepads. You can start the game with one player, but you will be flying around solo.

My Role:

Programming Lead. In this project, programming lead was really just a title. Another student and myself shared equal repsonsiblity in designing and programming the game. I did both systems level (split screen rendering) and gameplay code (particles and movement). This was my first real project with milestones and essentially no code base (except the engine itself). Previous projects were 3 week endeavors with a large amount of code already written (pulled from previous projects). Celestial Clash was my undergraduate capstone game.

Platform: Windows

Links: download | video

The Malicious Masque

About:

The Malicious Masque is a game that was designed and engineered for the Global Game Jam 2010 competition. It won the judges' choice and the participants' choice awards for the DePaul Chicago site. The initial design took just over 4 hours and was iterated on throughout the competition. The actual development (asset creation and programming) of Malicious Masque had to be completed in a period of time lasting roughly 27 hours. The design of the game had to incorporate the idea of "deception" in some way and it had to include at least one of the following: a man, a plan, or a canal. The Malicious Masque is a game of deception where one player is secretly told (via controller rumble) that she is the "Killer." Through each match, the "killer" plans how she will convince the rest of the players that she is not the "killer". She gains points for each player that does not vote her to be the killer. The rest of the players go around stealing runes from each other trying to complete their rune. These players gain points by completing the rune.

**In order to play this game, you need four players and four USB Gamepads. You could potentially play with less but it probably wouldn't be as fun since identifying the "killer" becomes easier.

My Role:

Our team, Dr. Danger's Sing-a-long Septet was made up of a designer, an artist, and five programmers. I was a one of the programmers. I was responsible for the camera. I had to make the camera zoom in and out in relation to all of the player's positions. It also had to keep the players centered on screen. My other big responsibility was the animation system. For this I wrote a simple script parser to read in and setup all of the animations for the players. It wasn't the prettiest code I've ever written but it got the job done with time to spare.

Platform: Windows (XNA)

Links: download | video