Endless Survival Game

Iterative Design, UE4 Blueprinting

Design Tasks

•Create and maintain a spreadsheet to balance the scalability of difficulty throughout the increasing waves
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•Design three combat styles, each with a standard and special attack
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•Design methods to provide player feedback of in-game values

Development Tasks

•Implement a minimap showing the player's position in the level, as well as the position of enemies and ammo caches
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•Create a tutorial level to explain the controls and gameplay features to the player
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•Develop three different enemy types with different strengths and weaknesses to challenge the player
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•Develop a system to randomly spawn enemies at different spawn points within a radius of the player

Learning Outcomes

•Learned to use spreadsheets to visualise the progression of in-game values to balance them
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•Gained excellent knowledge of providing player feedback in creative ways
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•Experience creating different combat styles with different advantages and disadvantages to keep them all relevant

Cuber

Group Project, UE4 Blueprinting

Design Tasks

•Design obstacle mechanics around differing cube properties
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•Design fun and challenging levels which reward the player with a sense of achievement and knowledge to use in later puzzles
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•Consider colour blindness accessibility throughout the design and development of the game
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•Collaborate with a team in a short production period to develop the game

Development Tasks

•Use source control throughout development of the project
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•Implement collectibles and time trials in each level
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•Create clean, readable, and editable blueprints which can be used by others in the team
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•Create a colour changing interface to change the colours of the cubes and their corresponding obstacles

Learning Outcomes

•Excellent communication and collaborative skills
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•Learned of challenges colour blind people experience and how to factor that into a game to provide a fun and considered game experience
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•Great understanding of source control
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•Experience leading a team and considering each team member’s strengths in order to best complete the project

Dog: Breakfast Bonanza‍

Advanced Games Mechanics, UE4 Blueprinting

Design Goals

•Design levels of increasing difficulty while implementing varying ways of altering the difficulty
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•Balance low and high enemy enrage enhancements to impact level difficulty
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•Design replayability features such as in-game challenges, reward shops, online leaderboards, and game completion statistics
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•Design tutorials that explain the gameplay, mechanics, and controls without using text

Development Goals

•Develop a system that compares level completion time with save data to update highscores
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•Develop a system to handle online databases that hold users and user data and present them in a leaderboard
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•Develop AI enemies that use sight and hearing to locate and chase the player

Learning Outcomes

•Greater understanding of AI Behaviour Trees and perception in UE4
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•Greater understanding of UE4 widgets
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•Learned how to host and receive online data to be used in-game

Dog 2: The Birds and the Bees
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Games Optimisation, UE4 Blueprinting

Design Tasks

•Design obstacles of varying difficulty which are avoidable when challenged with secondary obstacles
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•Design two different enemies for the game which feature different attack mechanics
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•Design the game with simple controls that can translate to mobile easily

Development Tasks

•Optimise the performance of the game by not spawning assets after the initial loading of the level creating optimised functions
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•Implement an online leaderboard
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•Implement a level seed system that generates a new random level if no seed is entered, or loads up a previously played level if the previous level seed is entered
•Make the game endless

Learning Outcomes

•Experience using seeds in Unreal Engine to influence the generation of a game level
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•Understanding of how to balance multiple obstacles/enemies in a fast-paced game
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•Learned to problem solve to create an endless runner that does not spawn platforms/obstacles to become endless

Dissertation: 

An exploration into the use of replayability features to increase play time and game lifespan of single player games by complimenting the core game loop

With a great interest in what incentivises players to play (and keep playing) a game, I decided to take on a research project based around the use of replayability features in games.
I conducted research around this and was able to understand more about player incentive, building trust among a playerbase, popular replayability features and the psychology behind them, and how to design mtx offers to generate more sales.