Student Game Projects

Pixellated was the final semester project for myself and Zahraa Al Zubaydi. The concept and art of the game was developed by Zahraa, and I joined the project as programmer and collaborator. Pixellated is about a cyborg child who travels between two different dimensions and explores the mysteries of these two contrasting worlds. It is a narrative based game incorporating some puzzles and mini games. The game was developed as a vertical slice of a larger narrative that we hope to continue working on.

In the production of the game I was responsible for all the programming and building the game in Unity. Some important features that I contibuted include:

• Modular programming - making sure that code could be easily reused in different scenarios, as the game was still being developed.
• Dialogue system - I decided to implement my own system for dialogue which consisted of two types of conversation: simple (non-branching) conversations that would sometimes repeat, and multi-part conversations with branching.
• A basic inventory - to allow the player to pick up items, and use them at specific points in the game.
• FMOD implmentation of music and sound - the sound effects and music are all reactive based on player location and certain triggers.
• Lighting effects - using Unity 2D lighting to better situate the character in the environment, without having to use different sprites. Also used to simulate sunlight.
• Shaders - using Shader Graph in Unity to create a wind effect on a tree sprite, and a static glitchy effect for the main menu.
• A save/load system - that would load the player into the correct location, have the correct items in the inventory, and not load one-time events that had already happened.

It was shown at the RMIT Games 2019 Graduation Showcase and was featured in an article about the event on Checkpoint gaming. The vertical slice is available to download on itch.io.

In this project we set out to make a clone of the maze-like mobile game Fill, and then iterate on the concept. The basic idea is that the player must pass through every square once and only once, the path is complicated by impassable empty squares and other obstacles.

Features of the game include: obstacles, procedural level generation (seen in the random level generator), level unlocking (which is saved between play sessions), 60 pre-generated levels for the final demo, tutorials that appear when a new concept is introduced, hints to guide the player, and an unbroken graphical indication of the path taken.

This project was done as a pair so most features were worked on very collaboratively. In general I would focus on the visual implementation and how the objects would interact with the underlying structures. I also did all the visual design, menu and level select system, and continuous path with gradient. It was created in Unity.

This is the implementation of flocking behaviours for two flocks of fish. The two flocks have the same general behaviours that make them behave like flocks, however they will only flock with fish of the same colour. The fish also have obstacle avoidance, and will remain within a given radius.

The video shows how the fish flock over a short period of time. The gifs show some variations on this behaviour.

Fish models by Aspen Forster

The brief for this project was to develop a concept for a Virtual Reality game and build a demo of it in Unity. Our concept was to take a fantasy setting and a simple game and allow the player to be fully immersed in the environment whilst having a clear objective. We used the setting of a ruined temple with ancient glowing technology, and incorporated a maze into the walls of the room to achieve this. The final demo was a single room lit only by a single orb and the path of the maze, with the objective being to drag the orb through the maze to complete it and leave the room. The maze was made up of four walls each featuring a grid of tiles which could be moved vertically on the wall. The tiles then held the nodes that made up the maze. The player would have to slide the tiles into the correct place and then drag the orb through the maze nodes to complete it.

My role in this project:

• Designed the maze - defined the layout of each tile and how it would line up with the tiles surrounding it. Also defined how the tiles would be initially presented to the player, ensuring that they could be moved into the correct positions to complete the maze.
• Visual programming - translated the layout of the tiles into objects that could be handled by the back end and could be fairly easily swapped out in the event that we wanted to change the layout. Programmed of visual effects such as the lighting up of the tiles.
• Liaised between the artist and back end programmers - as the group member with the broadest experience in Unity (both programming and visuals), I managed the interaction between the code back end and the visuals ensuring that what was being created was compatible and consistent with our concept.