Stuff I'm Working On Right Now (In Varying States of "Working" and "Right Now")

MAZE : MYSTERY AT ZENITH, an Arcade-RPG. My "main thing" right now.
The Emperor's reign has covered the world in an endless maze.
A tragic love story unfolds within a darkened hall, long long ago. Consider it kinetic poetry.
Plays without any buttons except for arrow keys. bump your face into guys to attack them, positioning and timing is key!
It's weirdly fun for how simple it is, I think I might be on to something.

KEY IDEAS: An attempt to really lock in on "game design fundamentals", and make something as fun as possible with simple ingredients.
I've learned a lot about level and enemy design working on this, my tightest codebase yet too.

Jopper Night

In their little world the Joppers Hop at Night. Even little lives deserve your love.
A silly, slow-paced combination of idle games and "frustration platformers" a-la Getting Over It & Jump King.
You can only somewhat corral your joppers with certain tools, but you can watch them run and play. They'll find odd things, and bring them back, just for you.
Keep them safe! This life is all they know.

KEY IDEAS: The plan was for a combination game and toy, something that you could leave on in the background as a little distraction, or really get into trying to
control the joppers and sweat over getting to higher up levels. I like that kind of sliding-scale of player investment.
Also just a vehicle for all the simulation-y Odd Creature Interactions I have knocking around in my brain.

LAW OF MAN

Another Action RPG, but with open-world progression and combat more focused on combo attacks and exploiting movement abilities. The story of a service robot on an island of great interest to many national powers.
Research efforts on Forbidden Island halted years ago with the disappearance of genius roboticist Dr. Hell D'epocalypse,
but recent geopolitical tensions have lead to the project's urgent renewal.
What tragedy has occurred in the depths of this holy ground? In the darkness of an ancient mind, the Enemy of Man awakens.
Involves lots of silly physics-based jumpy-bouncy combat, whacking enemies into pits and deflecting their projectiles and such.
Quite fun and cute, but the custom physics system started grating on my nerves, and I had to take a break.

KEY IDEAS: Inspired by old 2D Zelda, I wanted to make a fast action-adventure, with short dungeons and lots of cute art and silly characters, just a fun little webcomic of a game.
The physics-y combat was intended to amplify that mood, with lots of fast-paced comedic action-slapstick going on moment to moment.





The Living Creature, a survival-horror-shooter game I didn't finish where you play as DOGGY, the Living Weapon. I should finish it some time...
I'm really pleased with the dog animations, though it was kinda painful to do...

KEY IDEAS: It was primarily an experiment in mixing old-fashioned Atari-style pixel art with weird 60fps puppet animations.
I thought it would look neat, and it did, so I suppose that's success.


Leap The Lake, A game about new experiences, and surpassing monotony. Escape the Comfort Zone.
semi-ugly hero's journey/life simulator, in the vein of Shenmue or Boku No Natsuyasumi. Collect $49.95 from stacking boxes every day to pay for a grayhound ticket.
KEY IDEAS: Making a game where the 'point' of it is only implied in the title, and the rest of the game seems to discourage you from pursuing it.
The core loop of the game is a dull day job, and talking to weirdos, but there is a lake nearby. Perhaps, there is something better on the other side.

Design & Development Demo Reel

I Designed On...

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ESSENTIA OMNIA - Released 2023

Worked as lead designer, programmer, artist, and lead sound/music person on this final-year student project.
An exploration-experimentation-puzzley-mystery game where you play as an alchemist, exploring a small open world and uncovering the rules of its complex systems,
in order to create the Philosopher's Stone. Winner of the Level Up Showcase Technical Innovation 1st Place award!

KEY IDEAS: After playing Outer Wilds & La-Mulana, I had the urge to work on something vast and mysterious, so I decided this capstone project should be a game like that.
I wanted to create something really complicated and systemic, with a lot of weird little interactions and surprises to discover, that slowly twist together into an Objective.

Released Solo Games of Note

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DOCTRINESPACE

A comedy-drama speculative sci-fi storygame about cryptocurrency, the nature of truth, and being a stupid little guy in the throes of it all.
About 30 minutes to play through all the way, with loads of unique scenes, subtle variations, and branching paths.

KEY IDEAS: I felt like making another twine game after finishing CURSED CHALICE, and I got an idea for
a super-ambitious branching-paths weird-abstract-system-filled sci-fi adventure game about information as transaction. This is maybe 20% of what I wanted it to be,
I made a lot of compromises to just get it finished. I'm pleased with the jokes though, and the music. I never got to fully implement the "Doctrine Matrix",
a strange little grid on the side that would affect the tone of conversations and unlock certain options depending on how it was configured.

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I'm Hungry! I'm Healthy! I'm Human! - Released June 2023

A survival-crafting-metroidvania-battle royale (Really! (Kind of.) ) commissioned by the web zine "Indiepocalypse" for their 41st issue, made over the course of a month.
It has many silly and weird mechanics, and an ending if you can figure out the secrets of the world. Pleased with what I managed to accomplish in the timeframe, even if it doesn't have much to say.

KEY IDEAS: Almost a joke game, I wanted to make something that used as many popular videogame genre buzzwords as possible in weird ways, a game where every stupid idea I had was implemented.
It's weird and janky, but there's a lot of ideas and events that I really like in it, I'm proud of it in the end.



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SOUTHERN CROSS - Released 2022

A minimalist RPG about fear and being feared, with a strange control scheme that reflects the theme.
Short, simple and tense, people seem to like it. My second most popular game.

KEY IDEAS: The project started as an attempt to just make a "Minimalist RPG" with as simple a random-encounter combat system as possible,
but after taking a break working on it I started thinking about what kind of world a system like this implies, and it became something I really like.



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TRUTH'SBOUT - Released 2021

A two-player platform fighting game, with a weighty-physics-y combat system.
Originally it would have netcode (people still ask me about it...), but it would just be such a pain.

KEY IDEAS: Really I just wanted to make a fighting game, simple as that.



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RELAYALITY - Released 2021

A game where you must complete all four levels, a pretty easy task.
It's getting the true ending that's a little more involved...
A rather difficult action-puzzle game I designed and developed in 7 days for fun.
Over 1000 plays on itch.io.

KEY IDEAS: After beating La-Mulana, I developed a taste for "figure out the rules that govern the game space" style puzzles, and I wanted to see if I could make one quick.



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SHRINESPARK - Released 2020

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CURSED CHALICE - Released 2019