Kevin Wall
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Psychic Protocol
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Contributions

User Interface Development Customization on UI elements. Controller accesibility options. Optimized UI understanding. Game Settings persistent throughout gameplay.
Created and managed assets used. Oversaw quality assurance and bug testing. Created a dynamic main menu. Customization features in the credits menu for designers. Audio management for all sound implementation.

Team Role: UI/Generalist Programmer

Team Size: 6

Development Time: 2 months

User Interface (UI)
  • Implemented a State Machine for consistent transitioning between menus.
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  • Gamepad support for all in-game menus (which proved more tedious than initially thought).
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  • Player stats design was inspired by Dishonored.
Radial Wheel
  • Working on the Radial Wheel was one of my proudest moments during the project.
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  • Calculates the proper ability by using the angle between the mouse's position and the center of the screen.
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  • When an ability is selected it sends a update to the players current ability and updates the UI accordingly.
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  • Working on the Radial Wheel taught me a lot of things, proper organization, clear descriptions, and especially trying not to over complicate something.
Displaying Credits
  • The credits menu behaves similarly to movie credits with the fading on the top/bottom.
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  • A modular implementation of credits where you can keep adding sections if need be.
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  • Giving proper credit to all the assets/components we used was important to our team.
The Main Menu
  • "A simple live scene" similar to Portal with randomly switching security cameras.
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  • During our Beta Sprint (2nd Month, 3rd week) I added the suspended entity and some particle effects to help make the scene feel filled.
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  • Fun Fact: The mysterious being (floating rotating enemy model) soon became known within our game universe's God that was spinning perpetually in place in the main menu, potentially providing the powers given to the player.
Checkpoint Notifications
  • Displayed in the bottom left of the screen and lets the player know they cleared a room.
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  • Checkpoints help the Room Management System know when to load/unload rooms. Similar to implementing an object pooling system.
Player Settings
  • Use of scriptable objects to quickly access data across scenes.
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  • To apply user settings the user must apply changes within the menu, otherwise they are reverted to prior values.
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  • The use of proper protection levels on variables helped improve access to variables when needed.
Audio Implementation
  • A majority of entities are customized with 3D spatial audio, helping the players awareness to their surroundings.
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  • Within in-game menus the audio muffles/unmuffles with lowpass filters to provide a stylized effect.
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  • Fun Fact: Enemy sound effects were primarily created via our team members.
Reticle
  • The color of the reticle changes depending on the entity/object you are looking at.
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  • Priority of color is assigned by distance, whichever object is hit by the reticles raycast is shown.
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  • Getting the reticle's design to change was a challenge.
Directional Hit Indications
  • Calculated by taking the angle between an incoming projectile and the players forward.
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  • Hit indications images are cycled last-in first-out for fading out.
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  • Player hit results in screen-wide overlay vignette.
Elevators and Scene Transitions
  • Elevators are a transitional point for the player to climb further ahead within the game.
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  • A challenge I had with elevators was with the inside button, which was resolved via storing the last interfacable button.
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  • Timers were used frequently within the elevators as fading the scene in and out to provide a seamless transition between scenes.