Soul Shard
At FIEA we're given the chance to simulate a studio-like environment and work on a multidisciplinary team to produce a shippable game released on Steam by the end of summer.
During this capstone experience I was able to work as a Gameplay and Systems programmer, developing the main player mechanic and maintaining the technical foundations of the project being built in Unreal.
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Our game, Soul Shard, is a third person co-op puzzle adventure game that utilizes our unique Artifact Zone to dynamically generate geometry at runtime in order to manipulate the world and the puzzles that fill it.
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Working on this project has been a great way to experience the day to day operations of a real studio and gain valuable practice with the skills that are required to be a successful programmer in the industry
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Gained a better understanding of the Unreal Engine workflow when making a full game
Developed skills with Blueprints and Blueprint conversion to C++
Practiced strong 3D math concepts while implementing the dynamic procedural mesh that makes up the Artifact Zone
Experienced working in a sprint/task based team with producers, desginers, and other programmers, using Jira to manage our time
Artifact Zone/ Player Mechanic
The Artifact Zone gives our player the ability to dynamically spawn platforms in the world that can be used to solve puzzles and traverse environments.
In our project I had the opportunity to bring this mechanic to life, using Unreal's Procedural Mesh to allow the player to launch projectiles that connect and form a solid 3D object in the game world.
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Making this mechanic was extremely beneficial as it allowed me to take on challenging 3D math problems while learning about procedural mesh generation in engine.
Blueprints & Conversion
Having experience with Unreal's Blueprints, one of my goals for this project was to implement functionality with them.
With this goal in mind, I was able to lead our engineering team in educating ourselves. This allowed us to have a very productive prototyping phase, assisted by the rapid iteration of blueprints.
Later on in the project I prioritized developing a skillset around converting working blueprints into C++, allowing for the optimization of our game logic.
My goal is to create a structured process for converting our blueprints that our engineering team can use as we finalize our project this Summer.
Performance Management
One of my main contributions to the team was monitoring game performance and providing implementation solutions that were efficient and kept our game running smoothly
Used Unreal's Profiling Tools to maintain consistent performance and identify bottlenecks
Participated in code review to refactor inefficient functionality after prototyping
Implemented level streaming that stitches together the stages of gameplay
Assisted with the final packaging and release of the game on Steam
Gameplay Programming
One of my main responsibilities on the team was assisting the producers with gameplay implementation by creating unique powers for the artifact zone.
This involved helping bring their ideas to life by creating modular gameplay tools that could be easily customized by designers and artists.
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I also spent time on bug fixing, providing solutions and adding polish to gameplay that became complex due to the dynamic player mechanic and intricate puzzles.
