About Galactic Shadow Shooter:

Working with Microsoft BigPark Studio, our seven-person team created a two-player online shooter in HTML5 in 15 weeks. Galactic Shadow Shooter is an industry project created by graduate students at the Centre for Digital Media in Fall 2010.

Our client gave us software specifications in the beginning of the project, they are as follows:

1. Run in browser
2. 2 player synchronous co-op multiplayer
3. 2.5D (2D with depth)
4. Responsive shoot’em up action game
   • Multiple (~5-7) enemies on the screen at the same time
   • melee attacks and projectile attacks
5. One single level
   • Side-scrolling
   • Separate fields
     • Next field is accessible once all enemies have been killed
   • With a Boss at the end of the level
   • No noticeable loading while in a level
6. Steady high frame rate
7. HUD and on screen feedback
8. Particle effects
9. Some dynamic environment
10. Some level of vertical gameplay
11. Some full screen effects
12. At least one instance of a scripted camera
13. Sound effects
14. Resizable window
15. We also added asynchronous gameplay

The high level purpose of the prototype was to evaluate if HTML5 today is a viable alternative to Flash or Unity for deeper, browser-based game experience.

My Role:

My primary role was that of a Project Manager. I took on the responsibility to scheduling and coordinating a team of seven for a four month long project. I was also the primary contact point between the client, team and the faculty. I identified task-related processes to improve team efficiency. Also, proactively identified risks associated with meeting project milestones; ensuring appropriate steps are taken to resolve difficulties which may impede progress or compromise achievement of project objectives.

I took on multiple secondary roles such as that of an character artist and technical artist. I helped in creating character art/sprites, we used actors in front of green screen and created silhouette using the video footage. I also helped in creating an appropriate art pipelines and workflows, working in conjunction with the art team and software engineers.

Trailer:

Gameplay Video:

Galactic Shadow Shooter Description:

It is the year 2044. A cargo ship, the S.S. Galactic, travelling back to earth from a lunar colony is thrown off course by malfunctioning navigation equipment.

Passing through uncharted territory, the ship takes on an unintended passenger – a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism that rapidly infects both the humans and technology on board. The small human crew is driven to insanity, and the ones that don’t die mutate into violent humanoid creatures.

The only two unaffected passengers are a pair of siblings, Katsuo and Noriko, whose abnormal blood doesn’t react to the virus. With the ship locked on autopilot and headed to earth, they are civilization’s only chance at survival.

But time is running out…

About TaxiCity:

TaxiCity is a game created using Silverlight development kit. The game resources are generated using Open Data from the city of Vancouver. Our team is working with Microsoft Canada and David Eaves to create an engaging and interactive display of freely available/Open Data. The Open Data is used to create the map; Bing Maps acts as a sort of GPS mini-map for the player; and Silverlight is our main platform.

This project is a four month long project at the Centre of Digital Media. Our Client for this project is Microsoft Canada and our mentor for this project is David Eaves.

Game Description:

In the game players will play as a taxi driver in Vancouver, picking up passengers and delivering them to key landmark locations in the city. Real world geometry creates the game map and the route tracking services provided by Bing will be used to guide the player to his/her destination.

My Role:

• Scheduled, tracked and managed the development team using SCRUM and Agile methodology
• Created process, outlined best practices and monitored compliance when necessary
• Generated and implemented audio using Adobe Sound Booth and Visual Studio
• Helped document and maintain project highlights and process

We are tracking development on taxicity.ca feel free to check it out.

About Talon:

This was a seven week long project for Visual Story course. We had to create an interactive story telling mechanic which had elements of the teaching of the course. We decided to build a game which essentially begins in a two-dimensional environment and evolves into a three-dimensional world. This game is made in Unity 3D game engine. You can check out our documentation blog here.

Game Description:

An archetypal hero falls to his death in a simple video game and the game continues with the next extra life…but does it? Despite player expectations, the character goes into a realm designed especially for him and all his previous incarnations.  In spite of being the same character, they all developed their own quirky personality, and our hero must recruit the ones with the will to fight their way out and uncover the truth.

My Role:

• Game Designer
• Lead Level Designer (2D)
• Documentation Video Production

Tools:

• Unity 3D
• Maya
• 3Ds Max
• Photoshop
• Audacity
• Soundbooth
• Premier

Play the Game:

• Play online (Unity web player is required)
• Download for Windows
• Download for Mac

Making of Video:

Screenshots:

About C.H.L.O.E.

CHLOE ( Collaborative Hallway Lit-Obstacle Experiment) is the proposed installment for the CODE(Cultural Olympiad Digital Edition) Live event at the Center For Digital Media. It features an illuminated, pressure-sensitive flooring system built to allow passersby to continue to a common goal upon successful passage. This project was built for the class of Building Virtual Worlds at the Centre for Digital Media.

CHLOE consists of a number of square pads placed across the width of a hallway. Whenever a person walks along the hallway and over CHLOE, a cumulative score projected on the hallway wall will be incremented. At any given time, some of the squares will be lit up with a LED. If someone steps on one of these lit squares, the score will be reset to zero. Also, the location of the lit squares will periodically change.

Every square pad in CHLOE is equipped with two 12V LED strips and a pressure sensor. All these square pads are hooked up to a microcontroller embedded chip called ‘Arduino Mega’ which forms the brain of CHLOE. This whole setup is then connected to a computer using a USB cable which contains the logic of randomly lighting up of the square pads and updating the cumulative score using different animations in flash. The serial USB port is used to communicate back and forth between ‘Arduino Mega’ and Flash.

Duration: 2 Weeks
Team Size: 11 Members

My Role:

• Lead on constructions and hardware
• Technical and electrical support
• Unit testing and Integration Testing

Screenshots:

About Speed Razor:

This is our final animation piece for our class at the MDM with Larry Bafia.  The Speed Razor is a car shaped paper cutter and we were tasked with creating a commercial for it. We were given a few constraints by Larry, that it has state the facts that it is “Red”, “its Fast”, “Italian” and “it Cuts paper”. Using Photoshop, AfterEffects, Premiere Pro, 3DS Max and Soundbooth our team of six produced this fun piece. We dealt with the challenges of putting real objects into a “paper” environment.

Development Process:

We started with sketching out the storyboard on paper. As soon as we finalized what we wanted we started taking photographs of the paper cutter and toy cop cars using a green screen background (which was one of the most time consuming part). Mean while we were also looking for reference images of real streets, music for the background and started with the 3D text modeling. The 3D model had over 40 lights and simple camera angle.

We composed all the images and the art layout in after effects and added the text there on. After rendering the file, we took the out put into premiere and added sound and music and also the 3D text.

My Role:

• 3D Artist – 3Ds Max
• Text Animator – Adobe After Effects

About The Forgotten Story of Stanley Park

This was a project for the Building Virtual Worlds class where we were asked to build a virtual world of any famous Landmark in Vancouver and we choose Stanley Park. We believed that it would be more valuable to tell the story about the First Nations in Stanley Park before it was known as a public park. We learned a lot about the history on this matter and thought of different ways to tell this story. We worked through creative ideas in order to provide an effective impact. Given the 4 weeks that we had, we decided build an interactive timeline in Flash that consisted of a panoramic scene, slide show and an audio player for narration.

My Role:

• Project Manager
• Sound Engineer
• Production co-ordination

Screenshots:

Click here to play The Forgotten Story of Stanley Park

My Experience:

Online gaming in India is at a very nascent stage, it has traditionally been associated with mainstream portals like Yahoo & MSN. For these, gaming has not been a focus area but merely another application for engaging users when they are looking out for some quick entertainment. The engagement level of most users has also been low with infrequent usage and loyalty.

Now all this is changing with the spotlight sharply focused on online gaming, this has happened as several market developments have taken place in a short time. There have been high profile launches and cases of forward integration with development studios moving into a consumer facing role. The international market has also woken up to the potential that India offers with global publishing giants setting up shops in India.

Methodology:

I have conducted extensive desk research for this project. I also spoke to a cross section of stakeholders from gaming portals, traditional portals and game development studios. With the help of interviews, books and reference materials I have been able to complete my research.

What is Samsara?

It is an innovative new concept for a MMORPG designed on the basis of Indian Mythology. This was an undergraduate project for “Entrepreneurship” class. It includes being entrepreneur of  a hypothetical new company with business plans for the same, backing it with research and analysis.

My Experience -

There is a positive outlook in the MMORPG industry in India; this is based on key demographic variables such as the growth in the Internet base & the contribution of children and youth to the Internet base. However the industry acknowledges that the supporting infrastructure is not robust at this point in India. I have done the industry analysis, Environment Analysis, Description of the venture, Operational plan, marketing plan and Financial Plan.

Some character mock ups: