Bacon Bits

My final project for UVU's Intro to Game Design.  This is the first game I made using the Unity Game Engine.  The assignment was to make a game with a one button mechanic.  I designed all the assets in Maya and imported everything into Unity.  I spent a lot of time writing scripts to get the camera working how I wanted and adapting the game play to work well with the physics engine.

When we finally reached the class deadline, there were still a lot of features and improvements that I wanted to add to the game.  I have since begun rewriting Bacon Bits from the ground up and plan to release it to the Android Market and App Store before the end of the year!  I will post updates soon, but here is what I turned in that last week of class.

Play Bacon Bits!

Skylantis

This last semester at UVU I got to work with twelve other students in DGM 3610 to bring together a game in about 4 months.  None of us had ever really worked on a project like this before, so we didn't really know where to begin.  Many of us had had our first exposure to the Unity game engine the semester before where we each created our own small game, but this was a different story altogether.

We brainstormed together and came up with a basic premise and storyline for the game and jumped in.  In retrospect, we all agree that we should have spent a lot more time developing the game play and fleshing out the game docs before we ever opened Maya or Unity.  Despite an overly anxious sprint out of the gate, there was a lot of excitement and we found a good chemistry between classmates.  After dozens of re-designs and script resets, we have reached a point where we can be proud of what we have!

We decided to take our game to the Utah Indie Games Night in April to get a little more feedback on how we could improve what we have.  The event was hosted by React Games in Taylorsville and we had a great time getting to know other indie developers in the area who were working on projects of their own.  It was a great opportunity to share ideas and get some honest criticism to get us on track to a better game. (Greg Squire, coordinator of Utah Indie Games and owner of Monkey Time Software sums up April's IGN here)

Classes have now ended, but most of the class is still anxious to work on Skylantis.  We have a LOT of work left to do if we want to turn any heads, but many of us have decided to invest more time over the summer to squash out bugs and refine our content.  I'll be sure to post here with any big updates.  (You can also follow the class blog here)

My role in this game was as a coder.  I wrote the scripts for the main character controller, animations, enemy AI, and a handful of game logic to fill in the holes.  I also worked with our coding team to improve the grapple mechanic to the point it is today.  Here are a few web builds to show the direction we are going.

Mechanics Level

Tutorial Level

Level 1

Level 2

Quick Vend Inc.

My group in our business class decided that our final project would be Quick Vend Inc.  The business model included the distribution of soda fountain vending machines with an LCD touch screen.  For our final presentation I used Maya to design our prototype and assembled the renders into Flash for the video.  The Flash file paused at key points during the presentation allowing us to discuss each point with the class before pressing the right arrow key to move on to the next segment.

See the Presentation Video Here!

Piano Proz (Prototype)

With the popularity of rhythm based games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band I wondered how well a piano rhythm game would play out.  The computer keyboard is similar enough to the piano keyboard, right?  Here is a prototype I built with Flash and Action Script 3 and some of the concept.  Someday I may revisit this and push it to a more complete build.

Play it here!!

Femme Fatale

Okay, so I think when I first started working with 3D in middle school this is what I imagined myself making.  Take a beautiful woman, put her in some spandex superhero suit, and give her a gun and a sword.  Cliche? Sure! But it was fun to make and I learned a lot.  She was built from the ground up in Maya.

Watch in HD!

Christmas Morning

I was watching some of our family home videos from when we were kids.  There was one Christmas morning when my brother Bobby came out in his He-Man pajamas.  He got a new cowboy hat, vest, guns and a holster.  I thought it would make a pretty good cartoon.

Watch in HD!

Here Kitty, Kitty.

Inspired by my cat Stellar, this was modeled in Maya.  I wanted to model this very quickly while still capturing some of the shapes that give Stellar his personality.  If he was a cartoon, he'd look something like this.

Fantasy Bones

I found myself sketching this guy over and over in the margins of my notes in class, so I decided to bring him to life.  All done in Maya, this will probably be my next rigging project.

Watch in HD!