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-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

Lead Programmer

  • Scripted all controls, mechanics, and in-game systems in C# on top of the standard Unity Library

  • Integrated all Spritesheet Animations

  • Designed and scripted all in-game Menus

Level Designer

  • Designed and built the 3rd level of the game

    • ​My level, "The Forgotten Behemoth", focused on circular traversal, pushing the 'forgotten' motif, and creating a large sense of scale

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.

  • Create a fun and memorable player experience with a unique art style and interesting platforming mechanics

  • Use a simple main mechanic that is easily prototyped and offers a spin on standard platformer traversal

  • Have polished player traversal and camera systems to minimize frustration

  • Communicate with the player as indirectly as possible, using the environment to guide them and convey the narrative of a long forgotten civilization

  • 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

  • A dedicated team with great synergy and similar tastes in gaming experiences

  • Good inter-personal team synergy

  • Relaxed atmosphere in the workroom

  • A strong shared team vision of the overall project tone and goals

  • Fast and unanimous design decisions

  • 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

  • Overscoping throughout the project

  • Did not always adhere strictly to milestone asset locks, likely due to said overscoping

What we learned

  • How to rapidly learn and use development tools in efficient ways

  • Feedback is crucial as early in the development process as possible

  • How to work with other game developers to build an actual game

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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