My Portfolio
This collection showcases work that I have done for the Virginia Modeling, Analysis & Simulation Center (VMASC), Ascendium Interactive LLC, and other relevant personal projects.
- VMASC
Coastal Coders is an educational game made in conjunction with the Newport News HII Shipyard and Newport News public schools that aims to allow students to explore the world of the maritime industry in a fun and interactive way. I worked on this project for almost 3 years as both an undergraduate and graduate student with the Virginia Modeling, Analysis & Simulation Center. This game will be deployed to Newport News public schools for a future STEM program curricula.
Unity C# - Maya - Photoshop
My Key Contributions
- Led a small development team of three to take on the challenge of designing and creating the end-game activity for Coastal Coders, which takes the form of a boat driving adventure with many tasks and mini-game activities presented along the way.
- Solely designed and developed several puzzle-based minigames using Unity C#, including a nonogram puzzle, cryptex puzzle, and path-matching puzzle.
- Modeled, textured, and implemented hundreds of 3D assets for use throughout the entire game.
- Lead UI designer/programmer for implemented virtual phone AR tool, and for previously mentioned boat game and all associated minigames.
- Created full scale submarine scene using Autodesk Maya and Unity, including lighting, sound design, animations and environment interactions.
- Composed multiple songs for use throughout the full game and minigames.
Incredible Bulk
- VMASC
Incredible Bulk is an immersive Virtual Reality experience designed to allow middle schoolers to learn about maritime trades in a "hands-on" way. Our initial challenge was to recreate a physical pipe fitting puzzle in VR, but our final product was so much more. This first version was showcased at the 2023 World of Works Expo hosted at Tidewater Community College, where it was very well received. We then expanded the project into a full playable game, including 3 different career paths to pursue, all with different learning material, and a final boss challenge.
My Key Contributions
Unity C# - Maya - Photoshop
- Spearheaded Virtual Reality control design in order to provide a simple, accessible, and intuitive experience for people of every VR experience level, using the XR Interaction Toolkit
- In charge of implementing all socket interactions throughout the game for a smooth and seamless player experience.
- Modeled, textured, and implemented all 2D and 3D props and tools.
- Lead UI design for the entirety of the game
- Character design and creation, including a custom holographic shader using Unity Shader Graph to make the characters appear as holograms in the scenes.
- Collaborated with one other individual on environment design, including the creation of a full scale aircraft carrier, interior included.
- Animated one of the boss levels where the player races against the NPC "foreman" boss in a challenge to see who can finish the job first.
- Ascendium Interactive
Planet Jumper is the result of Old Dominion University's 2023 Planet Jam game jam, developed by Ascendium Interactive. The given theme for this jam was "Blue, Yellow, Green, and a hint of Grey". The four different levels of this game follow the theme linearly. As Lead Artist for this project, I designed and created almost every visual aspect of this game. From level design, to parallax scrolling, this project was a very fun learning experience as well as my first full project developed in 2D.
My Key Contributions
Unity C# - Maya - Photoshop
- Responsible for gameplay design and overall gameplay loop and structure.
- Level Design; designed and created four unique levels with different strategy requirements and distinct terrain variations to follow the theme.
- Background and Environment art; created several layers for parallax scrolling on a detailed space themed background with specific planet designs to match each level.
- Programmed parallax scrolling effect for each level utilizing multiple layers in particular orders in order to achieve a visually interesting and immersive depth of field effect.
- Lead UI designer/programmer for all UI and 2D elements including dynamic ability UI, pause menu interfacing, volume control, and a custom control display.
- Composed music that plays throughout the entire game.
- Designed and animated the dynamic title screen motion graphics, including synchronized audio and letter animations.
Wave Check
- Ascendium Interactive
Wave Check was the Ascendium team's very first project and game jam. The ECSGS 2023 Summer Game Jam was a two-week learning experience for us all at Ascendium Interactive as we aimed to follow the jam theme of 'waves'. Our final product was a 3D tower defense game that left the player on a remote island being attacked by waves of sea creatures, being washed up by the ocean waves. Being our very first game jam, this project got us on our feet and helped us to better learn our capabilities and strengths as a team given specific time constraints and guidelines.
My Key Contributions
Unity C# - Maya - Photoshop
- Gameplay Design; designed the overarching gameplay loop and structure, rules and mechanics.
- Modeled, textured, and implemented all props and assets, both 2D and 3D, including all defenses and boat models.
- All UI design/programming/implementation. For title screen, tower buy menu, currency and round timer.
- Title Screen overall design and layout.
- Environment design; skybox and atmosphere.
- Enemy/tower mechanics; designed abilities and mechanics for hostile sea creatures and defense towers to work in conjunction with player currency for balanced and fair gameplay.
- Composed the soundtrack that loops perfectly to play throughout the entirety of the game.
