Marcus
Santos
Game Design
"YOUniverse"
YOUniverse is a 2D roguelike fighter game created by our game development team, "Dingo Devs". You play as "Max", a college student, determined to find reclaim his cat, "Meowbert". Max must fight his way through different dimensions and defeat other versions of himself to save his best buddy.
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The game was completed within a 4-month term, as a project for a game development course taken during University. The workload was very demanding as we had to balance other school work with the development of the game. With proper communication and a collaborative spirit, we were able to persevere and complete the game.
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As the Lead Programmer and Gameplay Designer of the development team, I was in charge of writing and implementing a vast majority of the scripts as well as designing the levels, properties, and gameplay aspects of the game. The game was completed in Unity and scripted primarily in C#.
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Link to game:
"Arbour"
This game was developed during Global Game Jam 2023, where the theme was revealed to be "Roots". My team and I explored various ideas, such as cultural roots, hair roots, and root canals, but ultimately decided to go with the traditional plant/tree root theme. The game received 2nd place in the community vote in Ottawa.
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The team and I wanted to create a game where the player spreads out and creates intricate root designs from a central point, the tree. The player has a limited, diminishing water supply that is used to grow more roots, however, there are ponds scattered across the map to replenish the water supply. The game was also designed in a way that resembles scientific and anatomical charts of trees.
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My role during development was to implement how the roots interact with the environment, such as collecting and replenishing water, initializing/clearing the fog of war, and interacting against level obstacles. I was also in charge of designing and laying out the map with the goal of inciting the user to spread and explore in a fashion that creates root-like designs. I programmed my portion of the project in C# and used the Unity game engine to create the builds.
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Link: https://dcole.itch.io/arbour-ottawagamejam2023
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The Golden Egg
"The Golden Egg"
This game was developed for the BIT Olympics 2023, a program-wide challenge for BIT students at Carleton University. The goal was to make a simple platformer game using only stock images found from google images within a short time interval.
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The game is a simple platformer where the player is an egg. The goal is to roll from start to finish across 10 levels, jumping on moving platforms, dodging spikes, and getting blown by fans along the way.
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The game was individually developed in the Unity game engine in 6-7 hours. I implemented player movement, obstacle mechanics, and level design using C#. All game design choices were selected by spinning a wheel filled with them, resulting in an egg, spike traps, and fans.
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Link: https://poonther.itch.io/the-golden-egg
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Arduino Custom Game Controller V1
"Arduino Shield Defense Mini-Game"
This Arduino Uno project was done for a course in physical computing at Carleton University. I created the game using the Arduino IDE and using the Arduino-related libraries in Unity Engine. I designed the Arduino circuitry using Fritzing, an electrical design tool, and set up the breadboard, along with the components myself.
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The game was done as a miniature game jam as I completed the project from scratch within 24 hours. The game features the popular "Among Us" character as he defends himself from pieces of feces from random directions.
The custom Arduino controller comes with a rotatable potentiometer to change the angle of the shield, a button to change the color of the player's character, and LEDs that matched the current color of the player. The breadboard controller was then usable by connecting the Arduino Uno board to the PC.
Arduino Custom Game Controller V2
"Catana"
This Arduino Uno project was done for a course in Sensor-Based Interaction at Carleton University. Similar to before, I created the game using the Arduino IDE. however, utilized OpenFrameworks instead of Unity. The sword controller was built off of spare parts left around me and my partner/roommate's apartment
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The game was done as a complimentary to the controller that we created for the project. The game features a cat samurai named Meowmoto, referencing the infamous ancient Japanese swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi
Using a webcam, the game locates the green tip of the sword controller via colour tracking. On the controller, there are two buttons to alternate between the katana colours in the game and a joystick to move Meowmoto on the screen.