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Alex
shilts
-Work in Progress: Aesthetics-
The Millennial Stone
Team Lead / Lead Programmer / Level Designer
2D Platformer || Unity 4.5 || 5 developers || 2 months
WHAT DID I DO?
The Millennial Stone, a single-player 2D platformer, puts the player in control of a magical golem that can walk on walls. After a millennium of slumber, they awaken at the base of a large obelisk on the fringes of a vast ruined city with no direction or context. The player must guide the golem through the ruins of a once-great civilization, using their mystical energy core to surpass obstacles and uncover their past.
Personal Responsibilities
Project Summary
Scroll down for the project details and what I did
-Trailer edited by Pranav Kumar
OVERVIEW
PROJECT SUMMARY
Team Lead
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Led team design discussions
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Created and co-maintained the Game Design Documentation
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Maintained the final vision of the game throughout the project
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Directed and edited our Crowdfunding trailer
Lead Programmer
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Scripted all controls, mechanics, and in-game systems in C# on top of the standard Unity Library
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Integrated all Spritesheet Animations
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Designed and scripted all in-game Menus
Level Designer
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Designed and built the 3rd level of the game
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My level, "The Forgotten Behemoth", focused on circular traversal, pushing the 'forgotten' motif, and creating a large sense of scale
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Team Design Goals
This game was the result of the first Team Game Project course at the SMU Guildhall game development graduate program. It was a small 2-month project with 4 developers and 1 producer. Because it was a short project with a small team, we made a lot of design decisions that turned small amounts of work into large impacts on gameplay. This was the first full game that my team and I had ever created.
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Create a fun and memorable player experience with a unique art style and interesting platforming mechanics
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Use a simple main mechanic that is easily prototyped and offers a spin on standard platformer traversal
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Have polished player traversal and camera systems to minimize frustration
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Communicate with the player as indirectly as possible, using the environment to guide them and convey the narrative of a long forgotten civilization
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Make our first actual game and gain exposure to small-team dynamics
Below is a full narrated playthrough of the game, in which I discuss the project and design goals.
Narrated Gameplay Walkthrough
Crowdfunding Trailer
What went right
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A dedicated team with great synergy and similar tastes in gaming experiences
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Good inter-personal team synergy
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Relaxed atmosphere in the workroom
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A strong shared team vision of the overall project tone and goals
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Fast and unanimous design decisions
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Responded quickly and effectively to playtester feedback
Postmortem
Tyler Morgan - Lead Level Designer
Pranav Kumar - Level Designer
Jon Clark - Producer
Alex Shilts - Team Lead, Lead Programmer, Level Designer
Aaron Hamilton - Lead Artist
Big Stick Games, from left to right:
What went wrong
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Overscoping throughout the project
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Did not always adhere strictly to milestone asset locks, likely due to said overscoping
What we learned
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How to rapidly learn and use development tools in efficient ways
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Feedback is crucial as early in the development process as possible
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How to work with other game developers to build an actual game
1/2
One of the final steps of this project was making a Crowdfunding trailer found on sites like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, and we were told to treat it as part of a real fund-raising campaign to continue the game's development after the due date. I ended up directing and editing it, and it was a ton of fun. The result is shown below:
MINI-POSTMORTEM
Gameplay Walkthrough
Crowdfunding Trailer
Gallery
Gallery
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