Ian
Bennett
Game Development
Game Jams
SketchQuest
Genre: Drawing, Adventure
Players: Singleplayer
Work Time: 96 hours
Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Other Tools: Perforce, Google Drive
Team Size: 3
Roles: Project Lead, Level Design
SketchQuest was created for Game Maker's Toolkit Game Jam 2024. The theme was "Built to Scale". Our interpretation was just the idea "Building a 'to-scale' map"
In the game, you switch between walking around a series of rooms, and a drawing mode where you can draw each room.
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After drawing each room, you can submit your drawings. After which, each room's visuals are replaced with your drawing of them, though keeping all collisions.
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Using your maps, you must navigate to a series of randomly assigned waypoints to test your map's accuracy/readability.
Out of 7598 entries, we ranked #2205 overall.
floG
Genre: Bullet-Hell
Players: Singleplayer
Work Time: 48 hours
Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Other Tools: Perforce, Google Drive
Team Size: 5
Roles: Game Design, Level Design, Project Lead
floG was created for Game Maker's Toolkit Game Jam 2023. The theme was "Roles Reversed". Our interpretation was just the idea "What if you played as the hole instead?"
The game is quite simple, as the controls are just moving.
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Your goal is to avoid balls for long enough to get them all to stroke out. Your score is equal to the total number strokes taken by the balls, leading you to want a high score rather than a low score like in golf.
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There are some hazards in a few of the maps, including rocks that slow you down temporarily, and sand traps which block you but not the balls.
In addition, when you're hit by a ball, you're slowed temporarily, leading to moments where issues compound.
Despite it's simplicity, floG received pretty good reviews.
Out of 6800 entries, we ranked #780 overall.
Hell in a Handgun
Genre: First Person Shooter / Deckbuilder
Players: Singleplayer
Work Time: 48 hours
Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Other Tools: Perforce, Google Drive
Team Size: 6
Roles: Game Design, Level Design, Project Lead
Click to go to itch.io page
Hell in a Handgun was created for Game Maker's Toolkit Game Jam 2022. The theme was "Roll of the Dice".
Our game was a first person shooter where every time you reloaded, you got a set of bullets randomized from your bandolier, each bullet having different effects.
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First Enemy
Elemental Enemy
Player Has New Bullets
Game Design:
The main premise of our game was that it'd incorporate the element of chance during reloading, after which they had to strategically figure out how to use that result optimally. Taking inspiration from games like Magic the Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh for the deck elements, and combining that with gameplay similar to that of DOOM (1993).
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Every time you reload, 6 bullets are chosen at random from a pool of 9 active bullets, called the bandolier. Similar to that of a deck builder, the bandolier from can be customized between levels. We wanted players to have a chance to both actively and reactively alter how the RNG is put into play so as not to negate player choice entirely through the chaos.
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Bullets:
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There are 6 types of bullets in the Game Jam version.
- Neutral: Normal bullet
- Knockback: Less damage, launches enemies away
- Ice: Deals extra damage to fire enemies
- Fire: Deals extra damage to ice enemies
- Death: Deal extra damage to life enemies
- Life: Deals extra damage to death enemies
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Enemies
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Four types of enemies were present in the game. Ranged small enemies, walking enemies, elemental walking enemies, and the final boss.
- Ranged Enemies shoot the player and don't move. They die easily, but their projectiles can be launched back at them.
- Walking Enemies walk to the player and deal damage once in range. This is the most basic enemy
- Elemental Enemies are similar to the walking enemy, but they have a given element type (ice, fire, life, or death). All bullets deal less damage, except the bullet specifically designed to counter them.
- Final Boss enemy is a floating enemy, very big that gains a random elemental type. Every time it's countered, it's type changes to another. It doesn't attack, but at different health thresholds it spawns in more Elemental Enemies in the arena.
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Floor 2's Secret Room
With Bullets
Between Floors
Inventory Management
Level Design:
There were three levels available in the Game Jam version: tutorial, stage, and boss.
Floor 1 / Tutorial:
The tutorial was an important level in that it had to teach the mechanics of the game in an understandable and digestable manner.
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1. The first room has a locked door and a key hidden behind a corner. Players can't pass til they understand doors and how to interact with things.
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2. The next room is a narrow hallway with a single walking enemy, who has the key to the next room. The player can't pass til they learn how to shoot.
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3. Afterwards, the player is tested some. A larger room, with three walking enemies. One has the key, one has a fire bullet, and one has an ice bullet.
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4. Another hallway afterwards, with an ice type enemy with the key. Players are to realize elemental weaknesses at this point.
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5. The final test, 2 rooms with a variety of elemental enemies. They drop the remaining elemental bullets, and the key to the exit. An elemental door locks up an optional ice bullet.
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Floor 2 / Stage:
The main level is much simpler than the tutorial, serving more just to test the player before the boss, as well as get a few more bullets.
1. The starting room leads to a hallway, with a locked door at the end, and a side passageway.
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2. The side passageway immediately leads to a fire enemy and a ice enemy. Indicating the benefit of variety of bullets.
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3. Further down the passageway, the player encounters three life enemies. Indicating the need for multiple of one bullet. A key is found in the corner, and a fire elemental door that leads to a fire bullet and a knockback bullet
4. Back through the locked door, the player encounters a larger death enemy, the first ranged enemy, and 4 more elemental enemies. The ranged enemy is positioned directly through the door to be the first one the player encounters. The large enemy has more health, and the key to the exit.
5. The end room has a life bullet and a death bullet.
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Floor 3 / Boss:
The boss floor is very simple, leading up to the main boss.
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1. The player starts in a narrow hallway the leads up some stairs, giving the player a view of the flying boss in front of them.
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2. The player has to fight 4 elemental enemies, 2 regular enemies, and 6 ranged enemies up on balconies. The main boss floats above the player, but doesn't attack directly, instead summoning more enemies to the field as its health drops. When it dies, the player gets the key to the last room, and finishes the game.
Going Forward:
The team plans on working on the game still, although not in such a fast paced manner. Some decisions have been made in regards to the design of the game.
- More elements have been added: Lightning, Poison, Magic, and Chaos
- Each bullet has a unique critical effect, that has 5% chance of occurring.
- Enemies are weak to their own type, no longer of opposing elements for the sake of clarity.
- When hit with a bullet they are weak to, enemies lose their element typing (except the boss)
Fowl Play
Genre: Top Down Shooter
Players: Singleplayer
Work Time: 48 hours
Engine: Unity
Other Tools: Unity Collaborate, Google Drive
Team Size: 6
Roles: Game Design, Level Design, Project Lead
Click to go to itch.io page
Fowl Play was created for Game Maker's Toolkit Game Jam 2021. The theme was "Joined Together". Our interpretation of the theme led to a mechanic where you could join with enemies to pass off damage taken to them instead of taking it yourself.
Our team primarily consisted of 2 programmers, a sprite artist, an illustrator, a narrative designer, and myself doing game and level design. This was my first game in Unity, and some of the bigger challenges came from that, and needing to set up Unity's collaboration system so that the party could access the file from other states, as the party was entirely remote online.
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Game Design
The premise of the game came from the idea of tethering yourself to enemies and the benefits and challenges of doing so. I had come up with the idea of your character dying in a single hit, but tethering to enemies let you pass off this damage. So as to not make the game impossibly hard, damage is applied to your character or whoever you're tethered to 1 second after you take the damage, and stacks. As damage stacks, the time til you take damage is decreased.
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I wanted to make the game more bombastic and fast paced, so to give the player more control, when you make a new tether/ when you tether an enemy for the first time, it automatically applies one damage to them and starts the countdown again. This way in a crowded room, tethering people can act like a shooter game, assuming you have decent aiming. As number dwindle though, your advantage declines, as 1v1s are a little trickier.
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This delayed damage had a side effect of taking damage from dead enemies, so you had no one to pass it off to. Our solution was creating dummies that can be tethered to. Dummies soak up infinite damage, making the player invincible while tethered to them, but while tethered to a dummy the player cannot move. Tethering to a dummy in a crowded room is a surefire way to get shot by a lot of enemies, making it a lot harder to deal with all the incoming damage.
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The dummy idea led into a mechanic that wasn't fully implemented due to time: special enemy powers. Certain larger enemies would have unique mechanics when you tether to them. This would allow you to use tethering in certain cases as a puzzle solving tool or a traversal tool. And while we had the code implemented for this, we never got to implement needs for these abilities.
Level Design
The game only has two levels, a tutorial and end. Without any text, our challenge was to introduce the main concepts in by the end of the tutorial.
Level 1
- The tutorial starts in the far right room, and the player works their way left. The game's theme is that of a demon chicken killing people, so we've flipped the typical left-to-right progression to help feel like an enemy. You make your way down and out where you'll encounter the first enemy. You can't attack, only tether.
- After which is a room with two enemies, a button, locked door, and dummy. I think this room introduces too many concepts at once, but it's supposed to teach the button/door dynamic, refine player skill, and show how you can offload excess damage with dummies.
- The next room has four enemies now, putting more tension on the player. The dummy is there in most rooms just to let players live after a fight ends.
- Next is a room with three enemies and a locked door. You can open the door by heading back right for a small room with a button and another enemy and dummy.
- Next is the level boss. A tougher enemy, a charging unicorn, guards the exit. While the player can just leave, they're encouraged to fight.
- For fun, there's a secret room accessed through a false wall to find an easter egg. It does nothing.
Level 2
This next level is much less linear. The player has three options to go. Each one has a different challenge. The side paths have a boss spawner and a gate. Initially, the idea was going to require players to tether to the bosses to overcome certain traps, but that mechanic wasn't implemented in time.
The middle path has a pit that will kill enemies and players alike.
Conclusions
While I think this game was a good introduction to Unity and learning tile sets, our challenges in scope hampered our product, as much of our challenge relied on elements that weren't in the game yet. Going forward, we make sure to scope better, and focus on the important elements before adding others.
Genre: Top Down Strategy
Players: Singleplayer
Work Time: 48 hours
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Other Tools: Google Drive
Team Size: 4
Roles: Programming, Level Design, Project Lead
MurderHobos
Click to go to itch.io page
MurderHobos was created for Game Maker's Toolkit Game Jam 2020. The theme was "Out of Control". The aim of our submission was leading an out of control adventuring party to do quests while they wander around messing stuff up.
The team consisted of 4 people, a 2D sprite artists, 2 sound designers, a game designer, and me working on everything in engine, including asset management, level design, and programming. I was tasked to learn how to make AI using Unreal Blueprinting, as well as making my first Unreal Engine game using 2D sprites. Our set-up was done entirely online, communication done entirely through Discord, and files being transferred and game design docs being stored on a Google Drive folder.
Programming:
The large sum of my time was spent programming. Primarily using Unreal Engine's blueprinting system and behavior trees to create AI's that would walk around randomly, get distracted, and interact with things. But, would have a priority system to allow the player to override those distractions if they were negative.
Other than that, some time went to learning flipbooks and using sprites as 3D objects for the character. This would be later used in Hell in a Handgun, when we had the same artist.
VR Meant To Be
Created in Unreal Engine 4
Responsibilities: Programming
VR Meant To Be is a VR game created for Global Game Jam 2020. Created for the theme "Repair", the aim of the game is to help repair a broken relationship by managing your gaze, distractions, thoughts, and conversation to win back your partner.
The team consisted of 10 people, 8 3D model artists, 1 sound designer, and one systems designer, me. I was tasked to learn how to make a VR game using Unreal Blueprinting for the first time in 48 hours. Our set-up consisted of me creating all of the blueprinting, and occasionally taking breaks to rest while the team imported their models and sounds.
Programming:
I was the sole programmer and did a large portion of the asset implementation.
A lot of effort went into making sure interactable things had physics and interacted with the player properly.
We decided to deal with the VR mobility issue in a few ways:
A. There was dedicated rotation buttons, so you can snap directions.
B. You are surrounded by everything you need, no movement is necessary
C. A telekinesis system was added, allowing players to interact with far away objects. Based on I Expect You To Die by Schell Games