Game design is a complicated beast; a beast that can be tamed only by understanding your subconscious. My 2 years at the ETC helped me a great deal in understanding how to succeed in game design. In this page you will find my contributions to the field.
John Kolencheryl
An Unreal mod for delivering a single player experience which tries to intertwine storytelling and FPS action. This mod was done as part my independent study at ETC, Carnegie Mellon.
Mark Lucas's Sin / Flashback (Unreal Matinee) - Video given above:
I wanted to tell the player, the reason why Mark is taking part in Salvation. This was done through an intro sequence in the mod. I created this video completely using Unreal Matinee and stock animations / assets that came with the engine.
Features of the intro sequence:
1. Created completely using Unreal Matinee.
2. Custom textures on roads, walls and buildings to indicate emotions.
3. Syncing camera angles and changes to soundtrack.
4. Black and white with a Depth of Field post process filter to create a flashback effect.
5. Dialogues are displayed as 2D textures in 3D space.
6. The movement (speed/position) of the dialogues are based on the mood and tone of the speaker.
Level Design (Unreal Editor) :
1. An outdoor level with three islands joined through a central island.
2. Models of sunken and broken buildings to create a post apocalyptic ambience.
2. Each island has a specific number of AI bots which seeks and destroys the player.
3. The bots have high visibilty and they attack instantly. This is to force the player
to use vehicles in the game. And the reason for that is tied to the story.
4. The only ways to get across islands is by either speed boosting the vehicles and doing a jump
or waiting for the gravity shift to occur and then doing the jump.
5. The level is designed in such a way that the player is forced to use vehicles.
6. It is difficult to control the car when the gravity becomes low.
7. This is symbolic to the fact that he lost his better half in a car crash.
The Legendary Golden Fish is a game designed for the Jam-O-Drum device. It was developed in 2 weeks as part of the BVW (Building Virtual Worlds) class at ETC (Entertainment Technology Center). The Jam-O-Drum is a mulitplayer platform having four rotating drums as the input. We were a team of 4 and the details of the game are as follows:
Assignment:
Create a consistent, highly interactive, and engaging experience that lets guests feel like they have a lot of freedom in the choices they make. Despite this feeling of freedom, you must also ensure they have a very enjoyable time in the brief experience you provide for them. When you show your final world, we will have a few “novice guests” on hand. The guests we pick may not be “gamers.” Thus, relying on conventions from video games may not be a good idea.
Role: Texture Artist / Game Designer
Concept: It is a four player fishing game consisting of 3 rounds. The player who gets the highest score wins the game.
Mechanics:
1. The rotating drum is used to aim the hook and tapping the drum shoots the hook.
2. To reel in, the drum has to be rotated in anti-clockwise direction. The faster you rotate the drum
the faster will be the reel in.
3. There are 4 different type of fish and they rotate in concentric circles.
4. The difficulty in capturing the fishes increases from outer to inner circles.
5. Each fish has a different value and it increases from outer to inner circles.
6. The Legendary Fish has the highest value and is the most difficult to capture.
7. Players can fight over the same fish and the one who reels in fastest will eventually capture
the fish.
8. While fighting over the same fish there is a possibility that the fishing line might snap.
Assignment:
Make an activity, build a game, tell a story, make a piece of interactive art, do performance art, involve live action and/or physical effects, build a networked world, do something that’s never even been thought of before! Any and all of the above are fair game. Make them laugh, make them cry, make them think, make them go WOW.
Concept:
This was our final virtual world in the BVW class and was selected for the BVW show 2008 by a jury panel. We were a team of four and decided to make a rhythm based Tetris game. The game was a combination of a rhythm game like Patapon and Tetris. We wanted to create a cooperative gameplay experience. And hence, the game involved 3 parties. We had a drummer who would beat the Tetris Drums (Drums with button phidgets), a stomper who would stomp on a pedal (uses a button phidget) to bring the Tetris blocks down and finally the audience who will move the Teris blocks left or right.
Role:
Game Designer / Texture Artist / Script / Storyboards / Hardware assembly
Mechanics:
1. The drummer uses 3 drums to generate Tetris blocks based on rhythm patterns.
2. The audience will use Beyond Question Remotes to move the blocks left or right.
3. When the audience tells to stomp, the stomper will step on the pedal to bring down the block swiftly.
4. The stomper is also responsible for rotating the Tetris blocks to the desired orientation.
5. To win the game the players had to make 4 straight lines.
6. The drummer, stomper and the audience have to work collaboratively to win the game.
The Sentence is a game designed using the Head Mounted Display (HMD) and the Beyond Question Remotes (BQ). The duration of this project was 2 weeks. The HMD is a Virtual Reality device that uses trackers to sense position and orientation. The BQ remotes register the keys pressed and is used primarily for audience interactions. Our team comprised of four members and the details of the game are as follows:
Assignment:
Human beings have told stories for millennia. Your assignment is to tell a story where the guest
has some ability to control the events during the story.
Concept:
During the live telecast of a Human Rights conference, an individual interrupts the signal with a
live video feed from elsewhere. The stranger then tells the viewers that the life of a police officer
lay in their hands. The viewers are asked to solve 3 simple puzzles before they can set him free.
However, each of these puzzles reveal facts about this officer which eventually causes a dilemma
amongst the viewers as whether to save him or not.
Role:
Texture Artist / Game Designer / Storyboards
Mechanics:
1. The HMD is used on the police officer who sits tied to a chair. It shows his perspective of the
room he is captive in.
2. The BQ remotes are used by the viewers / audience to solve puzzles put forth by the stranger.
3. Successful completion of the puzzle is followed by an animation to give feedback.
4. First puzzle is to align shapes to form the shape of a key.
5. Second puzzle is to unlock a number lock by moving wheels up and down.
6. The final puzzle or rather a decision maker is a time bomb. The audience move it left or right to kill him or set him free.
Art Attack is a 2 player Playmotion Game. Playmotion is a shadow tracking device using infra red cameras. This project was completed in 10 days as part of the Lightning Round in the BVW class at ETC. Our team consisted of 4 members and the details of our game are as follows:
Assignment:
On this assignment the key is to have a good idea, preferably one that can be implemented simply. Your assignment is to create a world that has something fun for the guest to do. You get no
points for building a lavish, beautiful world. Only points for the activity and how compelling or fun it is.
Role:
Texture Artist / Game Designer
Concept:
It is a two player game in which one person has to clean a set of paintings while the other tries to dirty them simultaneously.
Mechanics:
1. The game uses a split screen for the 2 player gameplay.
2. The player to the left of the screen cleans the paintings while the player to the right makes the
paintings dirty.
3. Both the players affect the same painting.
4. Each painting has been divided into a 3x3 matrix and each cell is provided 4 levels of cleanliness.
5. The game has a total of 5 paintings to clean or dirty and the time limit for each of them reduces as
the game progresses.
Snaking was developed for a 24 hour GameJam hosted by Sim Ops, Pittsburgh. The rules were to create a complete game in 24 hours using their web based 3D game engine called Wild Pockets. The team consisted of 5 members and the details of the game are as follows:
Concept:
We wanted to re-invent the snake game and so decided to create one with additional game mechanics and strategy. In our game the snake always moves along one direction and the player has to drop direction boxes to guide the snake to the next level. However, there is a limitation to the number of direction boxes that can be dropped. Each time a direction box is used the snake grows longer and heavier and where that matters is when the snake crosses the bridge to the next level. In each level there is a weight limit on the bridge, exceeding which will break it and end the game. Hence the strategy is to guide the snake to the next level with the least number of direction boxes.
Role:
Game Designer / Texture Artist
Mechanics:
1. Directing the snake with D-Boxx (directional box)
2. Right Click to change direction of th D-Boxx, subsequently
upon collision with the snake the former changes its direction.
3. Left Click to drop the D-Boxx.
4. D-Boxx adds length/weight to the snake.
5. Completing the inventory results in
activation of a Bridge that takes you
to the next level.
6. The bridge has a weight limit.
Assignment: The goal of this assignment was to create an improved version of the game of Hopscotch. The work was judged on how enjoyable a game you managed to create – for the intended audience.
Description:
For this assignment I came up with two improved versions of Hopscotch and they were as follows:
1. Capture the flag:
This modified version of Hopscotch is loosely related to the actual Capture the Flag gameplay. This is a two player competitive game. The objective of the game is to collect as many flags as possible in a given time period. Each player has to satisfy certain criteria before he can grab a flag. There are 2 types of flags; the blue flag and the red flag. Before the game starts the players have to decide which type of flag they want to collect. The players have to then hop through squares to collect objects before they can aim to capture the flag. Once they have completed the criteria they can throw the marker on the flag and capture it. Once a player has a flag in his hand he can either take it back to the base or challenge the other player for his flag by playing a mini game called Mad Hopper. If the opposing player accepts the challenge then both the players enter a region called the Arena. There they have to play the mini game in which the number of hops a player does in 5 seconds is calculated. The player having the maximum number of hops will capture the opponent’s flag too. Once the flags are returned to the base they are added to the total points scored by the player.
2. Hopscotch memories:
This game is a combination of an old classic memory game and Hopscotch. It is a 2 player cooperative game. In this game a team of 2 have to hop on squares and reveal the pictures hidden under it. There are a total of 10 pictures out of which 5 are distinct and the remaining 5 are their duplicates. There are 2 rows of squares and each team member hops across one row. The objective of the game is to find identical pairs in the 2 rows of squares. For each round the team could reveal only one square from either rows. The team who finds all the identical pairs in the shortest time wins the game. This game can have any number of teams playing in turns.
Assignment:
For this project, I had to create a role playing adventure and three player characters, using the “Roleplaying 101” System. When the adventure has been created, you will take the role of “storyteller” and lead three players through your adventure. Your adventure should be designed so that it can be completed in a three hour period. Your adventure must contain a puzzle of some kind – it need not be an overt one.
Description:
My adventure game was about 3 friends each possessing a supernatural power. There is a psychic, an exorcist and a precog. One day they see a video which sets them on a mysterious journey to the epicenter of evil.The main features of this adventure are as follows:
1. Non-Linear timeline.
2. Use of video footage.
3. Use of text to speech software.
4. Story split into 5 ACTs.
5. D20 is used to decide basic moves.
6. D10 is used to execute special powers.
7. Maps are used to enhance the story telling.
8. Interest curve analysis of players.
Assignment:
The goal of this project was to design and develop a game featuring the use of one or more dice. The game may have other components, but the dice should be center stage.
Description:
For this assignment I wanted to create a stacking game. And so I went out and bought 300, 1 inch cubes, to make it happen. The game is basically a combination of a stacking game and a fighting game like Tekken. The game is themed around Tekken. The main features are as follows:
1.A two player versus game based on fighting genre and elements from RPG games.
2.Each player has 3 vital elements; BODY, MIND and SOUL.
3.There is also a special element called MUGEN. This element is required to perform special moves.
4.The players start off with 7 cubes each on BODY, MIND, SOUL and MUGEN.
5.The game uses a new fighting mechanic called the Fight Matrix. It is a 3x4 matrix which consists of arrows indicating directions. There are 4 directions on it; Up, Down, Left and Right.
6.The Fight Matrix is the game’s combat system.
7.The player is initially given 12 objects called Movement Orbs. These orbs are used on the Fight Matrix to perform special moves.
8.Once the player has used up all the directions available in the Fight Matrix he has to sacrifice 1 MUGEN from his stack to replenish the orbs and free the Matrix.
9.The player has 2 ways of attacking the opponent:
a.Imbalance attack: In this kind of attack the player throws a D4 and D6 (similar to the build mechanic in previous iterations) and the result will be used by his opponent to stack his own elements. So this causes the opponent to stack cubes onto his stacks.
b.Normal attack: In this kind of attack the player selects moves based on the Fight Matrix and rolls a D4 dice.
10.Finally, MUGEN can be used to transform between BODY, MIND or SOUL. The player can convert one element to another by sacrificing a MUGEN. He can also do this any number of times provided he has that many MUGENs to sacrifice.
Assignment:
The goal of this assignment was to dig up the game design treasures in your own mind, dust them off, and have them ready to use when you need them.For each of the games I had to relate the experience (skin) of playing to the structure (skeleton) of the game.
Description:
This document consists of a list of games I have played over the course of time and indicates the experience each of them gave me.