Fall Semester 2024
- Andrew Decker
- Dec 20, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Jan 6
This semester was the my first at the U of Utah. Great experience overall, intro classes for games were a nice ease into the college setting, but not super intensive.
Survey of Games was a blast; I loved playing some games that I would've slept on otherwise, and getting to talk and write about games with others was awesome. Digital Content creation wasn't super tough, but the instructor was great, and I'm getting more familiar with Adobe software and Maya (🤮) which is helpful. I hope to get more in-depth into design and art next semester.
Aside from games, I learned a lot about java in CS 1420: Object Oriented Programming and developed my traditional art skills in painting for non-majors.
Game Jams
September - A Snail's Pace
This one was wicked cool because I got to meet a bunch of new faces and work on something totally out-there. The project wasn't all that successful as a whole because we only had one programmer (sorry Gabe), and we had build issues on Unreal (again sorry Gabe), but I'm proud of my own work for that little project. Our submitted build is available here.
Design
The main pitch for the game was a higher paced pinball game where you play as a human trapped in a snail shell, to flip the jam theme "A Snail's Pace" on its head. I really liked working with the other designer, Donovan, because he had a lot of creative ideas for settings and backgrounds that we combined to create a really trippy concept.
Due to the weekend time constraint, we naturally couldn't implement nearly as much as we wanted to, but I organized the design documentation to dynamically adapt to where we were in the project. Using Nuclino for my documentation, I divided the development into phases, where once one phase was done, we could build that as a complete project, then implement new mechanics on top of it. Here are PDF versions of the mechanics documentation, but other elements like asset lists and issue boards were elsewhere in the Nuclino workspace.
Shading
The shader was really cool for me, because I took inspiration from the Space Cowboy music video by flipturn: https://youtu.be/3kNPEOqCBEE
To achieve the effect, I modified the cel shader I created for Slip Drift City and removed the outlines to create that really high-contrast comic style effect. Here's a photo of the player model with a nebula particle I made for the background.
Music
To bridge the "high octane" pinball gameplay with the more relaxed art style, I went for an arp-heavy, synthy music style that progressively gets more intense as you progress through the levels. Only one version is available in the final build, but I some versions are posted on my Music page.
Fall Break - UPGRADE YOURSELF
(Wait but Andrew, the GameCraft club didn't do a game jam over fall break right? Mwahahaha! I ran the jam over fall break! It was always MEEEEE!)
Since I wasn't going home over fall break, I decided to run a smaller, one-team jam over fall break, and there were surprisingly a decent few who wanted to join. Here's a link to a web available version. https://intheprocess.itch.io/ratboratory
Art
I animated the rat, and I learned a lot about squash and stretch in doing so. Though his frames are a little buggy, moving him around in game feels very lively, and I'm generally proud of my work there.
Music
Of course I also wanted to compose for this project. I am more proud of the menu theme than the main game theme to be honest, since I think the vibes are more fitting of the lab rat setting than the more ethereal game theme. You can hear both in the web version of the game.
October - Bare Bones
I also loved working on this project because I got to work with my friend (the GOAT) Tyler Chin as well as a bunch of new friendly programmers. Since I was one of few "artistically inclined individuals" on the team, I worked primarily on 2D and audio assets for the game, as well as helped facilitate the brainstorming early on. We landed on a vampire survival style game where you play a skeleton using your bones as ammo, but you had to use them wisely to avoid getting slimed. Here's a link to that project, also playable in your browser. https://logdrew.itch.io/last-leg
Art
I made the player assets as well as some of the background assets. I was proud of how I was able to define the art direction for this project and make something with a distinct cartoony/spooky style that matched with the game feel. I originally drew simple bone assets to make up a 2D animated skeleton using pins, but due to time limitations, I wasn't able to implement the full skeleton body before submission.
Music
My music during this project was a pretty big highlight for me, because I put a lot of work into giving the song a distinctly Halloween feel, while still keeping it high energy and intense. The solution, as for many problems in life, was synths and screams. I may save an in-depth breakdown of my process for making music for another blog post, since this once is getting quite long, but feel free to listen to the song in full on my Music page.
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