As a student at the DigiPen Institute of Technology, I was required to create a game each year that I attended the school. The last project I was a part of was the creatively named Project 3.
High Concept: 3D, Third Person, Spaceflight, Action
An enemy force has arrived with the intention of destroying the player’s home base. To defend against the hostile force a small band of fighters are sent out to protect the fleet. Gameplay revolves around combating waves of enemy ships that spawn continuously. Points are scored for destroying enemy ships with the intention of getting the highest score possible.
Responsibilities
- Created an AStar pathfinding system capable of path smoothing, finding the correct path over multiple frames while giving an initial “guess” to get units moving, working with higher level, pre-computed nodes, as well as other assorted speed ups. The game was originally going to take place on a planetary surface but time limits forced a change to a space environment which caused the pathfinding system to be unnecessary.
- Developed a hierarchical AI system which assessed the battlefield and assigned AI units various tasks.
- Created a State Machine system, messaging system, and spring based camera.
- Maintained targeting boxes around units on the playfield as well as providing the user arrows that point towards nearby enemies when they are off screen. The code for calculating what size a targeting reticule should be involves Catmull-Rom splines.
- Developed the audio system using FMOD. Featured full 3D sound with distance attenuation and the Doppler effect.
- Created a Quake style developer console for easy debugging in game.