What I accomplished as a Technical Designer
• Along with a team of 5, crafted our core pillars to create a game with a living, breathing world, an intuitive player character with depth, and creative obstacles to challenge players
• In charge of designing, programming, and iterating Bello, our player character, including his core movement and abilities
• Worked closely with artists to implement all art assets and animations in engine
• Designed and implemented all SFX in-game
• Programmed gameplay elements like interactive switches, hazards, and various platform behaviors
• Designed and programmed tools for our designers to prototype their ideas with ease, such as a Debug Manager and Slew Camera
Overall, I was primarily the Technical Designer and Sound Designer, but I had my hands in all aspects of the game because of our team's small size. It was easy to communicate our ideas and keep a solid vision of the game between us, but the workload was massive, which led us to descope and re-evaluate on a few occasions. This ultimately led to a more polished and focused game in the long run, while also being an extremely valuable lesson in how to overcome these valleys and how to avoid them in the future.
Gameplay Trailer
Work Summary
Bellisimo! is a project I've been working on with a team of five for the entirety of my Master's program at Bradley University. Inspired by platforming masterpieces like Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, and the more recent hit A Hat in Time, we strived to make a wonderfully fun experience for gamers of all ages and experiences. For the casual gamer, an accessible and easy to pick up player character and challenging, yet fair level design was key. While for the experienced gamer, we carefully crafted Bello, our cute and charming player character, to be a tool to allow players to unleash their creativity and speed amongst our levels. All players will experience a jubilee of fun that can simply be described as Bellissimo!
