Introduction: Developed on the Oculus Rift with PS Move, DinoRancher had guests play atop a Triceratops armed with an electric lasso. The goal of the guest was to shepherd a herd of Stegosaurus to safety, protecting them from danger.
Story: You are a DinoRancher armed with your electro lasso and trusty trike. Travel across the desolate wasteland, and protect your herd from those nasty predators!
Design Challenges:
Herd behavior
Enemy types
Environment design
Integration of the PS move into Virtual Reality
Trike movement system
Design Goal: To create an experience that made the guest feel like a cowboy travelling through the desert protecting a herd of dinosaur from predators.
My Contributions: As producer I arranged meetings, delegated pending tasks, and contributed creatively. In addition as a programmer I was responsible for setting up the games environment which included, asset preparation, level design and developing agent behavior.
Introduction: A Playroom was a developed on the HTC Vive. A virtual reality device that allows a guest to walk around a calibrated virtual reality space with hand held controls.
Platform:HTC Vive in Unity 3D | Time: 2 weeks | Roles: Designer – Producer | Team Size: 5
Story: The setting of the game is in a play room where the guest encounters a ghost boy who needs help in-order to ‘move on’.
Design Challenge: To design a game for naive guests, conduct play tests, and make three predictions of what the guest will do all whilst having the guest ‘feel free’.
Design Goal: Round 2 of Building Virtual Worlds was indirect control round. This required we build an experience that felt free, and was intuitive enough for a guest to play from start to finish without any instruction or guidelines.
My Contributions: I analyzed, and designed the guests interactions as well as wrote our main non playable characters dialogue. In addition I conducted play tests which gave us invaluable feedback which we used to further develop the experience.
Development
Interaction Design
I focused on interaction development by first analyzing what we currently had. From that I wrote a draft story design which was a rough version of what we would aim for. Our current gameplay was clearly a linear story experience, and I believed we could achieve a greater sense of freedom by allowing a player a choice of what game to play.
From this notion I created two different interaction models.
Interaction Analysis – Development Diagram
I then met with the team, presented my two plans. We choose plan 2 which I further developed into a more detailed version.
Interaction Analysis – Component Breakdown
Audio would play a vital aspect in driving this interaction model therefore I worked with our sound designer on a script for the game which we iterated over based on feedback (script documents).
Playtesting
Once the various audio cues, and interaction model was implemented we went about play testing the game. I conducted play tests with over fifteen naive guests which included an audience of fellow students, professors and non-students. This feedback was then used to polish elements of our experience.
Sample Play Test Feedback Form
In conclusion we correctly predicted each of the three interactions, and the guest understood our story, all with no guidelines or instruction from us.
Full Story
We began our project with brain storming, and research into the platform on which we were developing. We came up with several ideas including:
Darkness– Use light to guide the guest through a street.
Space Exploration– Explore the universe, and pick a planet to colonize.
Dreaming – Flying a plane, flying elephants, flowers turn to buildings (freedom from constraints).
Empty Room – Furniture place (guide them to a correct place).
Having difficulty grappling with the concept of ‘freedom’ we spoke to a member of The Entertainment Technology Faculty Jesse Schell. After meeting with Jesse Schell we honed in on an idea of a ghost boy which we would help in some manner through objects around him.
Next we thought about location, which was first a storage room due to it making sense to have many object, we then changed to a play room as it offer the potential for a ‘warmer’ environment for guests to feel comfortable.
After creating a basic room with a simple number of interactions which included:
Playing catch.
Place a train on the train track.
Hide & Seek.
Give a hug.
We had a prototype ready for interim.
Interim
After interim our two main points of feedback were
Make the boy and game generally less ‘creepy’.
To develop our interactions.
Less ‘Creepy’
Point 1 was a significant design challenge which we tackled by investing time into solving by:
Making our main game character look more human like.
Soothing music.
A warm game atmosphere.
A friendly, light and clear character voice.
Interaction Design
I decided to tackle point 2 by first analyzing what we currently had, then writing a draft story design which was a rough version of what we would aim for. Our current game play was clearly a linear story experience, and I believed we could greater the sense of freedom by allowing a player a choice of what game to play.
From this notion I created two different interaction models.
Interaction Analysis – Development Diagram
After meeting with the team, presenting the two plans and convincing them of the need to carefully design the experience, we choose plan 2 which I then further developed into a more detailed version.
Interaction Analysis – Component Breakdown
Implementation
Audio played a vital aspect in our experience so I worked with our sound designer on a script for the game which we iterated over three times based on feedback (script documents). In addition to audio we used a number of other techniques including:
Lighting – To direct the players focus.
Meeting the Boy
Color – Brightly contrasting objects such as with the yellow train on a blue chair, and a red book on a beige floor caught the players attention.
Train & Puzzle
Uniformity – A suggestive picture fragment was placed in the frame, and other similar looking puzzle pieces were placed around the level.
Puzzle Placed
After implementing these features with a new interaction model we went about play testing the game. We conducted play tests with over fifteen naive guests which included an audience of fellow students, professors and non-students.
Based on the feedback we received we continued to polish elements of the game. The end result of our work was that not only did we accurately predict each of the three interactions, but the guest completely understood the story behind our world all with no guidelines or instruction from us.
Introduction: Multi is a game built on Game Maker for Windows using Game Makers scripting language. Players control a character who traverses a series of levels in a platformer style game play.
Platform: Windows | Time: 3 weeks | Roles: Programmer – Game Designer – Artist – Sound Designer | Team Size: 1
Design Goal: The primary ‘design goal’ with this project was to further my design skills whilst practicing level and mechanic design.
Design Challenges:
Creating levels that were interesting to play with the mechanics I created.
Difficulty design.
Teaching players how to play.
Audio which included, character, and environment sound design.
Made the majority of art assets (character art and animation taken from a game maker tutorial)
Collected audio that suited the game play from free sources (credits bundled with Multi).
Conducted play testing with younger audiences which I believed would be interested in the game.
Download:
Follow the link below to download a .zip file containing the game. When the download is complete, unzip the file then have a look the read-me and, then run the .exe file to play the game.
Introduction: Seize the Sky was built during Building Virtual Worlds at Carnegie Mellons Entertainment Technology Center. The world was constructed using Oculus Rift, and Leap Motion. Using these technologies we put our guest into a virtual reality space with an ability to use a natural interface in our world.
Story: A mighty giant heads towards a town with murderous intent. A country side boy notices, and cries to Zeus for help to defeat the giant to save the city. You are Zeus, save them all!
Platform: Oculus Rift + Leap Motion in Unity 3D | Time: 2 weeks | Roles: Programmer – Game Designer
Design Goal: Our design goal with Seize The Sky was help character A (the boy) who is afraid of character B (the giant).
Design Challenges:
Incorporating a satisfactory use of Leap motion.
Achieving our a sense of character A is afraid of character B.
Level design.
Game-play design.
My Contributions: As the lead programmer on Seize The Sky I made large contributions to the code base for this project. I also took an active part in the design process with working with the team to develop various aspects including game play, and level design.
Development
Iteration 1
The development process started with being assigned teams. In our first team meeting we made clear our skills, started brainstorming ideas, and kept good development processes in mind.
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During brainstorming we tried using several appropriate methods, such as gesture centered brainstorming (due to our use of Leap Motion). Finally we had five initial ideas:
Help mend relationship between characters.
Play piano to make baby sleep.
Use light to guide a character home.
Keep animal safe growing to adulthood.
Hold characters hand to guide them.
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With our initial ideas we further boiled them down to three concepts with the following reasoning:
Concept one was hard to conceptualize compared to our other ideas which seemed simpler and more clear.
Concept five could be incorporated into concept three.
Creating sketches of each concept we then sought out the advice of our professor Jesse Schell.
With Jesse Schells feedback we went with concept C, because we wanted to explore squeezing in Leap Motion.
We then began further conceptualizing the idea with sketches, and research into the capabilities of Leap motion and Oculus.
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With this in mind we began assigning tasks to complete, considering game play, and used a scrum board to assist us in tracking tasks.
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On the technical side we used a NavMesh, and simple A.I. to run the behavior of the Hunter and Deer. The behaviors of the two agents were essentially:
The deer always moved to nearest tree that has an apple.
The Hunter patrolled around fixed points, and if it came close enough to the deer it began chasing it.
The result of our hard work was the following.
We then received feedback at interim, which sadly wasn’t good…
Building Virtual Worlds at Carnegie Mellon University starts with each student being assigned a role in Round 0. Since I have a Computer Science background, my role was that of programmer; this entailed I build a world that employed a number of basic features in Unity, such as:
Loads models and textures.
Play animations.
Use intervals, lighting, collisions, and multiple scenes.
When considering the world, what I noticed was the amazing talent of the artists and musicians around me. It occurred to me what a shame it would be for their work not to be seen. I decided then that my virtual world would be a gallery of other peoples work. My first task was then to coordinate of assets with artists, and sound designers.
Creation
Artists were initially required to create animated lunchboxes, then dragons, and sound designers were required to create music for a clip of game play from a previously made world. I decided to meld the two by attaching audio sources to several of the artists assets that would constantly play music made by our sound designers.
Night At The Park was a team project I worked on during one of Edinburgh University’s Game Development Society Game Jam’s. My team consisted of myself, an artist and my friend Sangseo Lee.
The Game Jam began with a theme which was Shadows. Games were required to include that theme in some manner.
My role on this project was as a designer. In addition to spearheading the game play and mechanics design, I hand crafted the following two levels using the Tiled map editor with assets our artist made, as well as free resources on the net.
Hugarfen is a manaless champion from the Plague Jungles who uses its health as its casting resource. I’ve written a short introduction that I highly recommend you read before moving on to the champion description.
Appearance
This image is not owned by me and was sourced from here.
Lore
When writing Hungarfens lore I choose to be unconventional. My intention was to craft something with little less hand holding. I want to challenge the reader to make inferences while giving them the ingredients to do so. I want the reader to not just read, but think and discover. Hopefully I made that possible.
Major Faction: The Desert Empire Minor Faction: The Enlightened
Role: Tank/Support
When reading the following champion description please keep in mind that this champion has three forms. To get an idea of what the forms are when reading his abilities, read his W ability description first.
Additionally this champion has no mana or energy rather his abilities cost health. This works from a lore point of view since it’s Euler’s spirit that is the source of amulet’s power, and mechanically as it helps offset his passive ability.
Appearance
A hulking humanoid figure, The Golem is a mountain of perfectly muscled sand standing several heads taller than any man. On its neck a pulsing amulet, an ancient artifact, a vessel containing the essence of a spirit. Euler’s spirit. The source of the amulets power.
I do not own this image, it was taken from this website.
The amulet design is based off of the concept of Ancient Egyptian scarab amulets. Imagine the following as a base:
I do not own this image, it has been adapted from its original posting here.
The primary colors of the amulet are obsidian black, with gold lining that traces the outlines of the amulet’s key features. Namely the ankh and its patterns, as well the scarabs body, wings and its patterns.
The amulet’s major chain would follow the design of the scarabs wings. The major chain would be made up of two minor chains, one for each wing of the scarab. Each link of the chain would be a single part of a scarabs wing. Once the two minor links are connected they would form a chain of two complete connecting wings, the links mechanically functioning in the same manner as the links of watches metal strap.
The amulets head is the scarab, its body a golden lined ruby the size of a mans head. From within the ruby onlookers would behold brilliant rays of gold and white through the carvings on the ruby’s face.
Hey everyone this is my first time posting a champion on the forms. So here is an idea of mine and I’d really like to know what the community thought of it. Any and all feedback is welcome!
Here’s this great art by radiationboyy. It captures the bulky, powerful, yet lumbering sea crab style that I envisage for Chowder. As a small addition though I would add some chains to his claws for a better fit with his lore and Q.
I do not own this art, for the original posting please follow the link below.
Worth their weight in gold, the deadly Storm Crabs of the Guardian Sea were a short-lived Noxian delicacy. Taken from the depths of the Guardian Sea to the bustling Ivory Ward Marketplace, such a prize brought Noxus’s lowly fisherman much needed respect.
Some say the crabs had learnt the ways of the storms when Runeterra was young, that’s why they lived in the heart of a seemingly endless one. Hearing the tales of the Storm Crab hunters, a promising young Noxian saw an opportunity to magnify his strength and end an indulgence that he saw as a sign of weakness. Arranging two ships he set off, and after two perilous weeks on the sea the storm was in sight.
He brought death, overseeing the systematic destruction of the Storm Crabs. When all the crabs were either slain or captured, he left, leaving the remaining petty work to his crew of weaklings. The crew gorged themselves on crab. Arguing amongst themselves about how to cook the last Storm Crab one dish stuck, Chowder, that crab took it as his name and as a reminder.
Having watched the annihilation of everything he knew and held dear drove Chowder insane, a mighty storm was brewing. With new found strength Chowder broke free of his chains, and with maddened frenzy shredded whatever was in his path, including the ship.
With nothing left Chowder roamed the seas indiscriminately destroying, soon becoming a threat to the trade routes of Blue Flame Island. Fizz the savior of Bilgewater sought out this new menace. On finding the it Fizz was capable enough to stave off its attacks long enough to communicate with the monster.
On Hearing Chowders tale and learning of his desire to find the young Noxian soldier, Fizz informed Chowder that what he sought could be found on the fields of justice. Thus Chowder joined the League of Legends to find and destroy that young soldier that started it all.
Whilst at The University of Edinburgh I self-proposed my final year project on Plan Recognition in R.I.S.K. I was supervised by Dr. Michael Rovatsos (an awesome supervisor I might add!). The research I did was fortunately noticed by the great folks over at the CREST Center UCL in their BSc Final Year Computer Science Project Competition 2013, and it had me shortlisted as a finalist.
The project involved the design and implementation of a plan recognition agent for the board game R.I.S.K. The implementation was done in a game called Domination, a Java version of the classic board game R.I.S.K. developed by Yura.net. Domination is freely available and you can download it through Sourceforge here.
The agent that was created is based on Geib and Goldman’s Probabilistic Hostile Agent Task Tracker (PHATT). Acting as an observer to the game it’s goal is to infer the unknown missions cards of players based their actions in real time. In my project report I evaluated the plan prediction accuracy of the agent with four experiments, the results of which I presented and analysed. I then went on to discuss the project outcomes and future work.
You can read my report here (brace yourself its a long read). Additionally the source code for the project is available from GitHub here.
Thrillseeker is a game jam submission on the theme “You Are Your Own Worst Enemy” designed and created by my friend Sangseo Lee and I. The core mechanic of the game is that whilst flying close to passing asteroids gives you a higher score, doing so greatly increases your chance of crashing. It’s like Burnout in that the player is rewarded for high risk game play.
White blood cells play a vital role for our health, without them we’d be easy pickings to the likes of even the common cold. Play a moment in the life of a white blood cell and battle against an ever growing hordes of viruses and protect the red blood cells to keep your heart beating. Even better, do it with a friend! Happy hunting!
Immunity is a coop game that I worked on with Sangseo Lee, for the Global Game Jam 2013 at Edinburgh. It took second place in the local competition and was noted by the judges for best design. At the moment it’s written in Java using the Slick framework and can run on Windows, Linux, Mac and Solaris. Check it out at the Global Game Jam website here!
