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Image de ELLA DON

GAME JAMS

Game made during gamesjams

sat_icon.png

Don't ever stand up to your boss, or else suffer the consequences! You are an employee of the department of Gray of Gray corp. One day you stumble upon a color option on your workstation and enable it. This angers your boss, and with the power of creation itself, he smite you down and split your very soul and body in half.

You'll need to coordinate your two half and make them work together to get together again.

ROLE IN THE PROJECT

  • Lead sound design;

  • Lead system programmer;

  • Level designer;

  • UX/UI designer.

  • Saturated is my first Game Jam, so it was a great learning experience:

    • I learned how to prioritize mechanics while under pressure;

    • I also learned how to better communicate my intentions while under pressure.

  • I also learned how to show controls to players in game in a simple and effective way.

CHALLENGES & LEARNINGS

CREDITS

Justin Marques - Level designer, Artist

Mathieu Gaudreau - Cutscene designer, Artist

Felix Marcoux - Programming

Roman Cros - Narrative, music

Julien Plamondon - Level designer

​As part of the Ubisoft Contest 2023

In Little Giant, play as a dwarf blacksmith responsible for reactivating the Great Structure. Use your blacksmith abilities to reactivate all electrical boxes and reactivate the entire Great Structure.

ROLE IN THE PROJECT

  • Lead Game Designer;

  • Lead Level Desinger;

  • Lead UI/UX Designer;

  • Music composer;

  • Audio Designer.

  • Little Giants was a very enriching experience;

    • I learned how to communicate game mechanics well to non-designers;​

    • I learned the importance of technical drawings compared to texts as a designer in order to allow other members of the team to fully understand my ideas;

    • I learned how to sell and pitch a game well in a professional context;

    • I learned how to properly approach and explain the usefulness of brainstorms;

    • I learned how to mitigate availability conflicts while promoting team spirit;

    • I learned the importance of having a minimum viable product in order to playtest early and balance the game quickly.

  • The biggest challenge for Little Giant was to show its main mechanics clearly:

    • To help with this, I used what I learned in Saturated:​

      • However, I learned that iconography doesn't just have to be present: it also has to be clearly visible.

  • Little Giants is also a puzzle platformer arcade game, so the other main challenge is to offer interesting platform puzzles:​​​​​

    • ​​To do this, we first needed to list the available level ingredients that we will find throughout the game:​

      • This allowed me to create 9 different levels that each showcase one of those ingredients found in the game.​

    • Then, I made 2D plans for each levels, after which I implemented them in Unity.​​

CHALLENGES & LEARNINGS

CREDITS

Benoît Dubreuil - Tools and System Programming

Patrick Cobello - Gameplay Programming

Tannaz Zainali - System Programming

Thomas Laflamme - Gameplay Programming

Paul Dubreuil (Vibe Avenue) - Audio Design, Music

Jude Frappier - Artist

Romain Almes - Technical Mentor (Ubisoft)

Laurène Burdin - Design Mentor (Ubisoft)

​As part of the Adventure Jam 2023 Game Jam

In The Ritual, you are playing as Pike McCloy, a sheriff who has the task of finding the mayor’s son, who was kidnapped by scoundrels.

ROLE IN THE PROJECT

  • Lead level designer;

  • Lead AI programmer;

  • Programmer;

  • Technical Designer;

  • Level artist;

  • Asset Integration;

  • Game Designer;

  • Narrative Designer;

CHALLENGES & LEARNINGS

  • The Ritual was a truly enriching experience: ​

    • I learned that you have to be careful when choosing to add Marketplace assets: the decisions you make at the start of the jam will have repercussions throughout development;

    • I learned how to coach and mentor juniors in level development, and how to vulgarize level design concepts to juniors.

  • The goal of the level design of "The Ritual" was to give the player a mysterious environment filled with environmental puzzles to explore:

    • To do this, I participated in the development of the game's narrative to ensure that important events and puzzles were properly added to the main level;

    • Then I went through the multiple iterations of level design (L0, L1, L2):

      • Metrics were still important in this game, so to help with that, I used a technique that allowed me to import a paper plan as a 2D plane directly into Unreal very easily:

        • This allows me to easily​ measured distances and set up some useful metrics.

  • One of the most important thing in The Ritual was the main character's dog:

    • In order to make it lively and adorable, I implemented an AI that moves the dog to different locations during the game and makes it interact with its environment​;

    • Since our main mechanic was taking possession of the dog, I also did a lot of research to put in place a convincing visual filter to clearly distinguish the dog's point of view from that of the main character.

CREDITS

Gabriel Anctil - VFX (Niagara)

Xavier Chouinard - Level Design

Vincent-Valérie Dubois - Programming, Narrative Design, Technical Design

Christian Forget - Audio Design

Esteban Gilbert - Narrative Design, Level artists

Viviane Badea - Artist

Marie Bourgeois - Artist

Nicolas Lévesque - Artist

Benjamin Roma - Artist

“LightBringer – Summon the Sun” is the result of Ludum Dare 55, which Behavior Interactive decided to host at its premises for the duration of the jam.

The eclipse appeared on April 8, 2024 and, a hundred years later, has yet to disappear. It is the job of the LightBringer to summon the sun again in the world.

ROLE IN THE PROJECT

  • Main 3C programmer

CHALLENGES & LEARNINGS

  • Creating a game in three days:

    • It is therefore essential to properly scope the project;

    • I therefore needed to show autonomy and discernment to identify any unneeded or optional features and cut them out of the game while negotiating with the rest of my team;

    • I also participated in the initial brainstorm.

  • Implement a spell system in C++ to manage the different possible spells:

    • Everything is done through an “input tree” which contains all possible combinations of inputs in an tree graph. This is similar to how combo system works in fighting games;

    • As the player do inputs while holding the spell button, the game records them and lists the next possible ones;

    • When players let go of the spell button, should they have successfully performed a particular spell, then the game executes it and its effects are applied.

  •  Use procedural materials to draw UI elements and manage the visuals of the spell system:

    • I used signed distance fields (SDF) to display the player's crosshair;

    • To spice up the HUD, when the player begins a spell, their crosshairs enlarges and transform into a total solar eclipse;

    • The crosshair also morphs into a partial eclipse whenever the player can interact with a given object.

CREDITS

Christian Forget - Audio & UI design

Esteban Gilbert - Narrative & Audio design

Mathieu Gaudreau - Level design

Félix Marcoux - Programming

Roman Cros - Narrative design, Level design

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