Wanderfall
Working in the studio with my team, making design decisions on character concepts.
The test level for our game, where I created and tested player controls.
Working on the shadow cast, using Unity features and manipulating them to what we needed.
Working on states required me to draw out a flow chart of how many states, what they connected to, and what transitions they needed.
Screenshot of the final game.
This was a screenshot of where I started with the controller, and testing level.
Lauren, Qinmei and I attended the Microsoft Indie Showcase 2018 at Square One. (Paul is Qinmei's boyfriend and helped us immensely with equipment)
We were setup in the hall with lots of traffic. Talked to some mixer streamers, other developers, and gamers!
Amazing experience showing our game to a massive crowd.
Our first exhibition, showing to a large audience. Went very well, talking to developers and gaming personalities.
Challenge:
Working on a game with a group of 7, for a duration of 8 months. Encompassing every facet of what we learned during my time at Sheridan. Communicating with the team, designing for a public audience, developing for the PC platform to release on itchio.
Task Breakdown:
My Role
I designed and programmed (in C#) player abilities such as movement, jumping, dashing, wall riding, and ground boosting. Also worked on implementing assets into the Unity engine creating prefabs for other designers to have ease when populating the game world.
Physics & Custom Gravity
Working in a 3D environment, the player controller is manipulated by forces and relies on Unity's physics engine. Gravity however was hard coded to get past the floaty feeling normal Unity physics provides.
Finite State Machine
I setup the player controller as a state machine so that it would be easier to effect specific values such as speed and gravity depending on the characters current state. All the values for each state were programmed into a public scriptable object so that other designers on the team could test new values as well.
Designing Mechanics
My main responsibility was developing the player controller. My team and I collaborated on the overall feel for the controller, creating something I couldn't have on my own.
I documented the Game Mechanics section of Wanderfall's GDD. Adding our initial ideas and changing them in accordance to player feedback, mechanic balancing, and cuts do to scoping down.
Outcome:
Public Showcase
The project was completed and showcased at multiple public events including Hamilton's Game Dev Drinks, Oakville Public Library's gaming expo, EGLX at the Toronto International Center, and LevelUp at Toronto's Design Exchange. Most recently we showcased at Microsoft's Square One Store, where we met other developers and streamers interested in our game. The audience seemed to enjoy the experience with positive comments and genuine interest in where the game will go in the future.
Teamwork
Not only was the game praised, I also gained a lot of knowledge working on a project for a long time with a team I grew very fond of. Working in sprints, we set goals on a bi weekly schedule with milestones to hit before we exhibited.
Showing to the Public
Sheridan provided an amazing opportunity to showcase our game at local events and to industry guests. We also had the opportunity to playtest Wanderfall at Ubisoft Toronto. All of which gave fantastic feedback, helping transform our game into what it is today.
Achieving The Goal
Playtesting early builds of the game provided a lot of constructive criticism towards the player controller I was working on. Our design challenge was to make a fluid movement hover board that simulated what we thought a hover board would move like, but still keeping it reliable enough to make platform jumps. Through multiple iterations, the player controller is at a point where it has achieved that goal. The majority of players gave positive feedback to the fluid movement of the player and the intuitive controls.
