Attack of the 50ft Robot!
Attack of the 50ft Robot! is an 3D action game set in a 1950’s B movie created during my Junior and Senior years at DigiPen. You play as a giant robot and destroy everything in your way. Demolish buildings, shoot lasers, fling enemies, launch rocket arms, and more all while playing the game with 3D glasses.
This game, while headed for the student IGF competition, did not get in the finalists. On the other hand, it has caused several terabytes of bandwidth, over one hundred thousand YouTube views, wonderful reviews on blogs, GameSpot, and IGN, praise from Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu, hosted on various download sites (not imitated by my team), and even has a fan-made torrent available out on the tubes of the Internets. We didn’t get IGF, but I’m glad we made a few people excited while blowing up a city. DigiPen listed it in the top 10 downloaded student games.
I was responsible for the core engine, player control and animation, building logic, UI, and sound. I also worked on some boss AI, object avoidance, and interactions with our level editor. For non-technical work, I created all 2D artwork and posters, made a few 3D models, and reduced the polygon count for various models supplied from our artists. This project spanned over a year with a few breaks on top of the rest of school work.
For the core engine, I created component-based game objects and a messaging system connecting all modules and components. Multi-threading was used for loading meshes and other art assets while the game was going through the splash screens and main menu. I used XML for storing information about each game object and their components and Lua for levels and complex particle systems. Within my teammate’s level editor, I set up editing of components and the ability to update components on the fly to see instant results. With my object factory, each module was responsible for their own components (i.e. graphics module owned all light, particle, and mesh components) and I was able to register types to be created by certain modules. This system allowed our transition to PhysX over a custom PhysX engine easier. I also had a memory allocator that kept debug information for when there were allocation/deallocation mismatches.
Team:
- Eric Azevedo – Programmer – Graphics/PhysX/Editor
- Dan Weiss – Producer – Environment Art/Particle Art
- Michael Zitkevitz – Programmer – AI/Input
- Travis Abel – Composer – “Feature Film” Music
- Alex Miller – Programmer – Art/Original Physics
- Jeff Barros – Artist – Robot Model
- Bryant Bartlett – Artist – Unit Models/Animations
- Charlie Van Liew – Artist – Environment Art
Red Hawk X2
Red Hawk X2 is top-down shoot em’ up similar to the game Raiden. The main focus of the game is to show off various graphical features, but it does include the ability to slow down, speed up, and reverse time. This was an independent project with everything but sound created from scratch.
Graphical effects: deferred shading, ssao, motion blur, volumetric lights, multiple shadow-casting lights, Oren-Nayer diffuse lighting model, and particles.
Planetary Defense
Planetary Defense was a incomplete game created by myself and a few individuals. The idea was for the player to be solving a circular match-four puzzle game to earn money to buy defenses. The tower defense portion required the user to create a path for the enemies (like the Desktop Tower Defense Flash game). I implemented all of the gameplay while a friend wrote the engine and graphics.
Previously our group wanted to make a Metroivania game. I spent time implementing a platformer with the Bullet physics engine before we decided to switch gears.
Kudos
Kudos is a 2D isometric action game with RTS elements created during my Sophomore year at DigiPen. With an army of fluffy blob creatures named “kudos”, take on the evil-doers and their mind-controlled minions.
I programmed the core engine, graphics, and animation. I also created all of the character artwork and sprite animatons from the concept art created by fellow teammates.
Team:
- Bryan Chacosky – Programmer – Original Design/Physics/AI/Player
- Matt Sorenson – Programmer – Map Editor/Triggers/File Managment
- Justin Patrick – Programmer – Pathfinding
- Brandon Townsend – Programmer – Original AI movment
The Pirate-Ninja
The Pirate-Ninja is a Zork-like text adventure game created during my Freshmen year at DigiPen. You play as a half-pirate, half-ninja who seeks vengence on the years of discrimination in a world of pirates and ninjas. Fight pirates, ninjas, robots, zombies, and bunnies.
I made the combat system, sound, and was the primary designer.
Team:
- Matt Sorenson – Programmer – Mini-Games/Inventory
- Chris Tallman – Programmer – Parser
- Nathan Williams – Programmer – Text Display/Mini-Games
Red Hawk X
One of my first games was developed with DigiPen’s Project FUN engine. It’s a top-down shoot em’ up featuring multiple types of weapons and levels, enemies, and a final quadrupedal boss.
