Ciara Tamay Del Grosso Bates
Games
Small games I made for fun
Hyperboy
Hyperboy is a Mario-style Android game with three unique levels, three different enemies, collectables and power ups.
I designed and built Hyperboy in my MSc in Creative Digital Media and UX Design as part of a team of two, primarily working on programming with some asset design.
Development
This game was made using GameSalad, a simple 2D game engine.
As a Mario clone made for mobile, the controls needed to be re-designed for a touchscreen and lack of gamepad. This led us to experiment with accelerometer movement, onscreen buttons and swiping to move. Ultimately, we decided that simplifying controls and displaying them onscreen was the most suitable for this design of level.
The game features power ups - a star and mushroom - and collectable gems, with a mini-map to progress through the levels.
We created an initial level with a "Miami" theme which copied the layout of one of the most famous classic Mario levels. We also made a winter level with snowmen and penguins, and an underwater level with jellyfish and sharks.
The biggest development challenge was the player's jump - we studied Mario games and read scientific papers on the subject of the jump to try and capture its satisfying feel, but came up against some limitations - time, and our game engine, which allowed a good deal of complexity but not full control.
Download
Download (free) on Google Play: Hyperboy on Play Store
Animballs 2D
Animballs?
Animballs are my answer to the various creature battling games of the 90s/ noughties - Pokemon, Digimon etc. I called them "animballs" as they were animals you captured inside special balls.
I revisited the animballs theme for my AR game Animballs Go!
Animballs is a demo of an RPG in the style of original gameboy games.
This 2D broswser game was made using Unity and the Fungus plugin. Fungus is a free node-based editor for narrative elements in Unity and I used it to create a vertical slice of a Pokemon-style game that poked fun at the idea of capturing wild animals to make them fight each other as in Pokemon.
Features
Animballs has a basic battling system, the start of a role playing adventure with a narative and some NPCs, collectables, and inventory and multiple different animballs who have strengths, weaknesses, their own moves, stats and types, and can level up twice learning new moves. Players can also catch wild animballs, fight them, and fight two other trainers.
The game is a bit buggy in battle. I later redesigned this battle system using C# (this version is made with Fungus plugin) for my mobile AR version of the game, Animballs GO!
What I liked about working with 2D and Fungus was the ability to add depth to a very basic game with few screens / scenes by just adding lots of text and conversation. I made NPCs who could tell you about the world, and added meandering conversation in the style of old RPGs which didn't really add anything to the game but which I found made the game feel a lot more fleshed out.
Animballs GO!
Overview
Animballs GO takes "catalogue and collect" style games to a slightly more cynical extreme, and lets players capture creatures that live in the logos on product packaging and battle them with each other.
I had an idea to make an AR game that scanned logos of real-world items which could initiate random encounters with an associated creature - logos just happen to be perfect image targets for AR, as they work even if backgrounds and colours change.
Coming soon : a brighter video
Design + Development
I built some modular components using Scriptable Objects to allow adding new creatures quickly (all it takes is a Vuforia image target added to the database, and then various creature stats can be added) which allows the players to scan items such as Avonmore milk, Dove soaps / lotions and some Pukka teas.
The scanned creatures can be battled against one another using a basic rpg battle system. I chose those initial brands because they were objects I had to hand which had recognisable logos that do not always appear the same on packaging, so it was good for testing for instance does the pukka logo dark on light register as the same as light on dark. In the case of Kellogs, the logo is always coloured the same but sometimes overlaps the image on the box or has a clear background.
The system has animball types, such as acid, fire, or earth, attacks which also have types, and these have weaknesses and strengths as multipliers for damage caused. Attacks also have probability of success, so a die is rolled on attack to see if it lands. There is also some randomness within a range used when a new animball is scanned - so you can come across an Avonmorlock with high strength, for instance. The stats in the game can be affected temporarily using potions and items, as well as by levelling up.
Levelling up is based on experience acquired in battle and is awarded based on the enemy's level.
For this demo, I did not extend the gameplay to allow for players training and battling their animballs extensively, so while levelling up repeatedly would grow the animballs and increase their strength, they do not currently acquire any extra attacks or abilities.
Features
- Uses Vuforia and compatible with Android cameraphones
- Expandible catalogue of creatures which have attacks, types which are strong / weak against other types, health, magic beans (manna or power points for attacks) and can gain experience and level up.
- Image targets using Vuforia - creature encounters are triggered by scanning the right logo.
- Objects and basic scrollable inventory which allows items to be used on a creature or against an enemy in battle, or outside of battle on your creatures.
- Turn-based combat system with strengths and weaknesses, chance to succeed based on the creature and the attack's stats.
- Particle effects made in Unity
Download
Downloadable build will be available here soon.