GAM-495 Final Project
By Reese Pichen
Introduction
Hello everyone, my name is Reese Pichen and I’m currently finishing up my bachelor’s degree in Game Design and Development for Southern New Hampshire University. I’m looking forward to taking what I’ve learned throughout my time at SNHU and applying it in the career world. This ePortfolio is a showcase of a few different projects that I have worked on while I have been pursuing my Game Programming and Development Degree. Throughout this project there are four artifacts that I have worked on and refined in the degree program. They will serve as a representation of some of the skills that I’ve acquired over time and that I will take with me once I step into the game design field.
Throughout my time pursuing this degree I have learned quite a handful of useful skills as well as understanding of game engine workings. When I first started out, I had a little bit of coding experience and a bit of experience with game engines. Over time I have learned a lot more about programming and game engine mechanics. When I initially started my journey I only knew how to code in Python, but now I know how to code with C# and C++. With the understanding that I have in programming and Unreal Engine 4 now I definitely believe that I have enough to start a career in game programming. As time goes on I will continue to work on the skills that I have learned here and continue to learn new ones.
Time management was definitely the biggest hurdle I had to face when pursuing this degree. Time management has always been something that I have struggled with but with online only classes I certainly struggle a bit more since I need to be more proactive and focused. It has been quite a challenge to manage social life, work, family, and school all at once and since I tend to get distracted, with the whole internet at my fingertips I tend to end up doing something off topic. However, despite all of that, I was still always able to successfully complete my work and continue moving forward with my goals.
Once I’ve made it into my career path for game programming, I plan on using everything I’ve learned up to this point to get myself started and slowly reinforce my skills overtime until I am completely confident in my abilities.To learn more once I am out of college I will be following online guides, online tutorials or getting help through peers, in regards to my own personal specialization that I’m seeking to undertake which is general or AI programming. Ideally, I would love to make it into a small company or group that is more in the group of indie developers as I want to start small before I attempt to go further.
Artifact 1: Puzzle Game
Artifact Name: Puzzle Game
Description: A game where the player needs to find key cards to open the corresponding doors. To find these key cards the player must solve various puzzles and avoid the AI that chases and attempts to kill the player. After getting all three key cards the player must navigate to the end of a maze to win the game.
Tool(s) Used: Unreal Engine 4, Visual Studio for C++ Coding, MS Paint for screenshots, OBS Studio for screen recording
Skills Highlighted: Level Design, AI, UI, Logic Problems
Reflection: The process of polishing this project was very challenging because this project was originally just a testing ground for random systems when originally learning. With that I had a lot of trouble trying to find a direction for this project. Of course I have learned a lot throughout my journey through this program so I had a better plan than I initially wanted. I originally had wanted it to go in the direction of an original Resident Evil game with the fixed camera but I had trouble getting it to work.
In the end I moved the idea of the game to a puzzle game that has DOOM style key cards that open corresponding doors. The project isn't quite where I want it at this point in time but I do plan to keep working on it in the future. I am planning to add a lot of puzzles, UI and advancing the AI to be more complicated than it currently is.
Artifact 2: Paintball Game
Artifact Name: Paintball Game
Description: A first person paintball team based shooter with a quake 3 style ammo and bots. The first team to 50 "kills" to wins the game. The game will have multiple levels with various designs.
Tool(s) Used: Unreal Engine 4, Visual Studio for C++ Coding, MS Paint for screenshots, OBS Studio for screen recording
Skills Highlighted: AI, Sound Design, Collectibles, Level Design
Reflection: I am very proud of this project, this project was also originally a testing ground for shaders and plugins when I initially did this class. I put a lot of time into the AI for this project to make them feel as realistic as possible. I also put in a lot of work on RNG paint splats where the pellets land. The bots themselves can react to sound and sight they will also react to the player shooting at them and hide/jump to avoid shots accordingly. There is still a bit of work I want to put on this project such as, HUD elements and respawning the bots on their corresponding teams and more maps. But overall turning this into what it is took a lot of work and is a massive improvement on what it originally was.
Artifact 3: Oil Lantern
Artifact Name: Oil Lantern
Description: A 3D modeled oil lantern with transparent glass
Tool(s) Used: Autodesk Maya and Mudbox
Skills Highlighted: 3D Graphics, 3D Modeling, 3D Texturing
Reflection: I have improved a lot on 3D modelling and when I originally had done this project this model had quite a lot of issues. When it was originally created it didn't have UVs and it wasn't textured. I completely rebuilt this model from scratch, and ensured that had UVs and was textured. There are some things that I would like to work on, such as getting the model to look more realistic, and the whole thing is shiny due to needing to make the glass shiny and transparent and the fact that the whole model is one piece.
Artifact 4: Beach Treasure Hunter
Artifact Name: Beach Treasure Hunter
Description: A game where the player needs to explore a beach themed locale and collect 20 pieces of treasure before the time runs out. The game features "enemy" AI that wanders around the map.
Tool(s) Used: Unreal Engine 4, MS Paint for screenshots, OBS Studio for screen recording
Skills Highlighted: AI, UX/UI, Level Design, Collectibles
Reflection: This project was the most polished of all of my projects before refinement. Most of the project was already done and I added textures to everything to make the game more appealing. I want to make some adjustments to this project such as fixing up the UI and modifying the wandering AI that steals treasure from the player when they collide with them.
