Portfolio

Listed below are the major game design projects that I am either currently working on, or have worked on in the past.

Artificial Intelligence Project – Pokemon Emerald AI Agent

Repository – https://github.com/Cwalrus96/PokemonEmeraldAI

For this project I developed an AI agent to play Pokemon Emerald using the OpenAI Retro framework. This agent monitors memory values within the game and allows the user to programmatically view and modify these values. The agent itself, which was written in Python, has two components. The first component is the navigation component, which uses the player’s X and Y position and an A* algorithm to navigate the virtual world. This component was fully functional. The second component of the project was the battle agent, which was designed to use Min-max game-tree search to choose moves to fight the virtual enemies. Unfortunately I was unable to locate certain necessary values within the memory of the game that would have made the battle agent fully functional, so it is left with a very basic battle agent that simply repeats the same attack over and over.

Senior Project – “Rune Battle”

Repository – https://github.com/Cwalrus96/SeniorProject

Design Document – https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qHFAG_bHSyQkL5Y2VE48dOHbSlwKk2sOiUjQ4mJCcC4/edit?usp=sharing

This project is an RPG style game with connect-3 puzzle style combat. Where Bejeweled has jewels and Candy Crush has candy pieces, this game uses magical runes. Instead of having a constant number of pieces and swapping them, in this game the player must control falling runes and place them into the correct positions. Different combinations of runes create different spells, which use up the player’s energy, as well as causing various effects. The player must defeat their enemies while maintaining their energy watching out for their opponent’s attacks.  It is being built entirely from scratch using the Processing development environment, specifically Processing for Android. I developed this project alone, and was advised by Professor Nathan Bean.

CIS 585 – Game Engine Design Project – “Studious Invention”

Repository – https://github.com/CIS585S2018/studious-invention

This project is a group project I worked on for my game engine design course. In this course learned about the inner workings of game engines by developing a game using an open source engine – in this case, Godot. In this game, the player is inside a spherical shape made up of hexagons and pentagons, and must travel from one end of the sphere to the other. Along the way, the player will have to navigate algorithmically generated mazes, fight enemies, and solve hand-crafted puzzles.

As for my contributions to this project, I created an algorithm to generate a hexagonal maze which can be used to populate the inside of the hex-sphere. I also modelled a platforming area based on a large dead tree, in which the player must climb ladders and hop from branch to branch to reach the top and open a chest, as well as a pyramidal level in which the player must solve three puzzles to correctly make it to the end of the level.

Vitae Quest

Vitae Quest is a board game project that I have been working on since fall 2016, and could best be described as a mix between Magic: The Gathering and Risk. This game has reached a significant level of development, has undergone significant playtesting and several prototypes. However, due to lack of time and resources this project has been put on the back-burner.

Main Page: Vitae Quest

“Mixed Messages” – Card Game Project

This project is a simple party-style card game that is currently at a late stage of development. Development of this game is still active.