Projects and Game Design

Nameless Hill (Narrative Designer)
September 2021 - March 2022

As part of my capstone project, I collaborated as part of "Team Love U All" (a team of seven game developers, including myself). We developed and published Nameless Hill: a narrative-driven 2D RTS. The pictures to left show an example of one of the in-game narrative events I designed and wrote (top), and a group photo of me and my team (bottom).

Nameless Hill is available to download for PC and Mac on itch.io.

Very ambitious and complex project in both scope and subject matter.
Produced a complete game with multiple narrative chapters in a short amount of time.
We wanted players to experience the theme and universal moral of enduring brutality in the hopes of a future without such conflict.
Extensively researched a number of conflicts from the 1940s and 1950s (such as the Battle of the Bulge during World War II) to set up the worldbuilding lore and gameplay events of Nameless Hill.
Sought to ensure as little ethnocentric bias as possible. For example, our characters use nicknames instead of given names to make the game less monocultural/monolingual.

The Lawgiver (Greenlight Pitch)
March 2021 - June 2021

Before being assigned to my capstone team, I had to present a greenlight pitch for the project I wanted to develop: The Lawgiver. Inspired by the near-mythical Lycurgus of Sparta and the civilizations of the Bronze Age Mediterranean. As I scoped and re-scoped my proposal, I had to figure out what had to remain historical "canon" and what I could change with minimal impact to the history and narrative.

Since the focus of the game was taking inspiration from other cultures, I wanted to ensure that if materials were condensed or even combined, the cultural virtues within each concept were still easily identifiable to the player.

Late Submission (Game Designer)
April 2021

Late Submission is a narrative-driven visual novel created in Ren'Py. You play as Matthew, a game development student who has left his homework assignment until the very last minute! How will you plan out your day to ensure the game gets finished in time?

Background images and character images for scenes. Characters change expressions during scenes.
Background music used for each scene.
Narrative system of "Work Points" to determine which of two possible endings the player gets.

Be My Guest (Game Designer)
April 2021

Be Our Guest is a vampire-inspired 8-bit adventure game created as my first-ever Bitsy project.

Four rooms.
Two animated drawings.
Two items.
Three sprites.
Utilizes a sequence list, a cycle list, and a branching list.

Improved Dungeon Crawler (Game Designer)
January 2021 - February 2021

This improved and updated version of a dungeon crawler assignment was my first game made in Unity with the C# language. The player collects "crystal" objects to "kick the door down" and move onto the next room. Watch the video to see a gameplay breakdown.

A more expansive catalog of my individual projects and team collaborations can be found at my itch.io page.

Player can fire weapon independently from movement.
Enemies attack in melee range, dealing damage quickly to prompt player to keep them at range or risk player health reaching zero.
Upon health reaching zero, player "dies" and the player object disappears.

FireArm (Game Designer)
December 2020

FireArm is an updated version of a previous game project, submitted to a game jam with a Wild West theme. In addition to the opportunity to address previous coding mistakes, I now could expand upon my original concept.

Shoot the outlaw boots using the mouse button. Score increases with each boot hit, but decreases with each boot that gets past the player.
Combines a falling object game with random creatures, a sound board, and more.

JOwOney (Item Programmer/Systems Designer)
December 2020

My first game made in collaboration with a group was JOwOney: a 2D platformer. Our goal was to include multiple mechanics and a systemic element. Our systems (powerups, "random" platform generation", and more) created a more interesting game than the core jump mechanic.

You can play the game in-browser on itch.io.

Personal contribution was a stamina system to allow higher jumps, replenished by "cat treat" items.
Very cute and satisfying art and theme.

Subatomic (Game Designer)
October 2020

My very first solo game that I ever developed was written in Python as a challenge to modify and improve an existing code for a basic falling object game: catching a basketball (falling object) in a basket (player).

In this entirely new game, Subatomic, you are a proton that is trying to make its way through an atom without colliding with any neutrons or electrons.

Hitting a proton or a neutron resets the score to zero. The further you get without hitting any other particles, the higher your score!
Moving object speeds controlled individually.
Handled collision between multiple programmatically controlled objects in case of both collision with player object and falling offscreen.

Nameless Hill (Narrative Designer)September 2021 - March 2022

The Lawgiver (Greenlight Pitch)March 2021 - June 2021

Late Submission (Game Designer)​April 2021

Be My Guest (Game Designer)​April 2021

Improved Dungeon Crawler (Game Designer)January 2021 - February 2021

FireArm (Game Designer)​December 2020

JOwOney (Item Programmer/Systems Designer)December 2020

Subatomic (Game Designer)​October 2020