Ripples

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• Position: Technical/Game Designer
• Technologies: Unity
• Date: August 2015

My senior project for Champlain College, I worked alongside a small team (4-9) over the course of two semesters to create Ripples, a competitive rhythmic pseudo-bullet-hell brawler where players are martial arts masters dueling on water to the beat of music. The project began as a reimagined shoot'em up on a pond with ripple-based offensive mechanics, where one's bullets are ripples, and shooting is achieved by jumping on the water's surface. This slowly evolved to have more rhythm game elements; players jump automatically to the beat of the musical track in the background, allowing players to focus on positioning and activating their character's special abilities. I prototyped the primary mechanics, iterated on them throughout development, and created systems of player feedback. I was also in charge of building boss encounters using musical tracks.

Design Documentation

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Icarus

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• Position: Interactive Designer
• Technologies: Unity, Oculus Rift, Arduino-powered wingsuit
• Date: June 2015 - September 2015

One of the projects I worked on at Champlain College's Emergent Media Center, Icarus has players don the Oculus Rift and a custom-made wingsuit to interact with a procedurally generated abstract world. I added some interactive elements to the world in the form of flying orbs and "birds" that followed them. Should players catch the orbs, birds flock around the player instead for a limited time. Players may also interact with floating rings to increase the longevity of their bird-influence. I also iterated on an intuitive and natural control scheme using the wingsuit. Apart from the gameplay elements of Icarus, I also helped with hardware maintenance and interfacing the wingsuit's Arduino guts with Unity.

Changelog Documentation

Footage of Icarus at a Burlington art event(0:42-0:57)

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Variance

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• Position: Interactive Designer
• Technologies: Unity, Imitone, Arduino-powered controllers
• Date: June 2015 - September 2015

Another of the projects I worked on at Champlain College's Emergent Media Center, Variance tasks three players with placing a ball into a box. Movement in each of the ball's three axes is controlled by a different controller, a microphone, an exercise gripper, and a stationary bike. I worked on concepting and implementing the different controllers.

Changelog Documentation

Footage of Variance at a Burlington art event(0:20-0:31)

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Kamikaze Titan Hearts

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• Position: Game Designer/Programmer (Solo Project)
• Technologies: Unity
• Date: December 2014 - January 2015

A grappling hook-based 2D boss fighter, Kamikaze Titan Hearts tasks the player with injecting love directly into the heart of a homing rocket-spewing, laser-firing, bullet-spitting, and chronically depressed multi-stage death mechanism. Created over the course of 3 weeks, KTH is an attempt to subvert the generally shootastic genre of boss rush/bullet hell games, removing shooting in favor of a grappling hook movement and defense mechanic. The player's grappling rope reflects or absorbs projectiles, and when enough reflection occurs, the player is able to emit an offensive burst of hearts, which can detach the boss' outer segments, or assail the heart directly.

A sample of my laser state-checking code:

/*The laser implementation works as such: a reticle moves 
in the player's general direction, with some wobbling to 
simulate inaccuracy. Once the reticule has moved for a 
preset amount of time, it stops and directs a ray between 
the appropriate boss module and itself for a period of time,
then resumes seeking.*/

//Reticule imperative
private void SeekPlayer()
{
    if (!firing)
    {
        //Move if distance from target is greater than 1
        if (player != null && Vector3.Distance(transform.position, player.transform.position) > 1f)
        {
            transform.Translate(Vector3.forward * trackSpeed* Time.deltaTime);
            transform.position = new Vector3(transform.position.x, transform.position.y, 185);
        }
    }
}
//Coroutine that constantly picks out points close
//to the player's actual location, directing the reticule.
IEnumerator FindRandom()
{
    while (true)
    {
        if (player != null)
        {
            randomPoint = new Vector2(Random.Range(player.transform.position.x - inaccuracy, player.transform.position.x + inaccuracy),
                                          Random.Range(player.transform.position.y - inaccuracy, player.transform.position.y + inaccuracy));
        }
        yield return new WaitForSeconds(fireInterval / 3);
    }
}

//Laser intersection check
private void LaserCheckHit()
{
    //First, cast a ray between the reticule and the boss module.
    RaycastHit2D[] hit = Physics2D.RaycastAll(transform.position, thisRet.transform.position - transform.position);
    //If the ray intersects another object...
    if (hit.Length > 0)
    {
        foreach (RaycastHit2D hitObj in hit)
        {
            /*If the object is the player's grappling rope, have the linerenderer
            be reflected to an appropriate position, and increase the player's
            secondary resource count.*/
            if (Input.GetMouseButton(0) && hitObj.collider.gameObject.tag == "LineCollider")
            {
                line.SetVertexCount(3);
                line.SetPosition(1, hitObj.point);
                Vector2 newPoint = (Vector3.Reflect(thisRet.transform.position - transform.position, hitObj.normal)*10);
                line.SetPosition(2, newPoint);
                playerLove.addLove(1);
            }
            /*If the object is the player, enable a variety of secondary effects
            and decrement player health.*/
            if (hitObj.collider.gameObject.tag == "Player" && !reflected)
            {
                playerHealthInfo.AlterHealth(-damage);
                camInfo.shake = 0.3f;
                camVig.enabled = true;
                laserEffect.chromeTime ++;
                sparks.Play();
                laserEffect.StartCoroutine("ChromeOff");
            }
        }
        line.SetWidth(10, 3);
        Invoke("ReduceLaser", 3);
    }
    shooting = false;
}

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Cellotype

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• Position: Game Designer/Programmer
• Technologies: Unity, Imitone
• Date: February 2015 (Ongoing)

An experiment to create an interactive experience I can control with my cello, the Cellotype uses Imitone (a sound input-to-MIDI software) to drive a shaped assortment of cubes, each elastically tethered to its starting position. Each cube responds to a certain pitch, reacting physically to sounds picked up by a microphone. This creates an interactive mobile driven by sound.

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Blindsight

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• Position: Game Designer, Sound Designer, Level Designer
• Technologies: Unity
• Date: January 2014

Created for Global Game Jam 2014, Blindsight is a networked deathmatch FPS in which players are blind statues hunting each other with echolocation and screams. I worked on mechanical concepting, level design, and sound design (foley work) for Blindsight, the intent being to create an unsettling and mechanically unconventional deathmatch experience. There are several nuances to the gameplay, the primary one being that all actions are visible. To kill another player, one need only scream in their general direction. Because of the echolocation mechanics, a player screaming to kill another can be pinpointed because of the visible sound waves caused by the scream. Secondly, killing other statues allows the killer to assume its last victim's shape. This creates emergent patterns of play, such as stalking other players by standing still at opportune moments and locations.

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Lonely Gods

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• Position: Game Designer/Programmer (Solo Project)
• Technologies: Unity
• Date: February 2016 - March 2016

Initially created for Global Game Jam 2016, Lonely Gods is a slow experience where players are deposited in a persistent world with its own system of stars. Once per real-world day, players can point to the skies and connect stars to form constellations, which then tell the player a fortune. Fortunes are unique and are synced with an ever-growing list online, ensuring that the player's experience is never repeated. The game also features a steganographic screenshot feature, which allows players to take a picture of their world, and then share that picture as a portal to their particular worldseed.

A sample of my starfield generation code:

void GenerateWorld(int newSeed)
    {
        //Check if the worldseed has already been set
        if (seed == 0)
        {
            while(seed == 0)
            seed = (int)Random.Range(-1024, 1024);
        }
        seed = newSeed;
 
        Debug.Log("Seed: " + seed);
        Random.seed = seed;
        //Generate stars
        for (int i = 0; i < starCount; i++)
        {
            //Stars are generated at random projections from a sphere
            Vector3 p = Random.onUnitSphere;
            //Thrust projections into space, setting star distance 
            //to somewhere between the min and max specified
            p *= Random.Range(minRadius, maxRadius);
 
 
            GameObject star = Instantiate(starObject, p, Quaternion.identity) as GameObject;
            star.transform.parent = this.transform;
            //Previously used a completely random color for the
            //stars, but later realized that picked colors are
            //more aesthetically pleasing
            //Color col = new Color(Random.Range(0f, 1f), Random.Range(0, 1f), Random.Range(0, 1f));
 
            //Picked color implementation.
            //Most stars will be white, with a small number of 
            //stars being other colors. Draws from a list of
            //colors specified in-editor, then chooses a final
            //color by deviating slightly from the picked hue.
            Color col;
            int colChance = (int)Random.Range(0, colOneInMod);
            if (colChance == 1)
            {
                col = starColors[Random.Range(0, starColors.Count)];
 
                float shift = Random.Range(-colorVariation, colorVariation);
                col.r += shift;
                col.g += shift;
                col.b += shift;
            }
            else
            {
                col = new Color(1, 1, 1);
            }
 
            //Generate other miscellaneous attributes, then
            //initialize those values within the instantiated
            //Star object. Also push the star into a list for
            //other game functionality.
            float starSize = Random.Range(minStarSize, maxStarSize);
            float bMod = Random.Range(minStarTwinkleMod, maxStarTwinkleMod);
            string name = (int)Random.Range(1, 5012) + " Archetype";
            Star thisStarScript = star.GetComponent<Star>();
            thisStarScript.InitStar(col, starSize, bMod, name, activatedSize);
            stars.Add(thisStarScript);
        }
    }

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