Demon Defense (Playable)

Other Levels:   Mansion     Gas Station    Neighborhood

 Role:
Level design, concept, prop and texture placement, pathing, combat encounters, event scripting, pacing, gameplay scripting, Ai scripting, effects, animation, art direction and game doc creation.

 Platform:                                        
Windows PC
Mac OS
Console

Engine:
Unity 3D

Language:
C#, JavaScript

Duration:
8 months

Team Size: 
4

Overview:

"Demon Defense" is a third person, tower defense, action game for computer/console. This game has been my brain child over the past eight months. At the start of development for this game, I was thinking about the survival mode in a lot of the big games I enjoy playing and thought to myself, how can I take one of my favorite game modes and make it new and unique.

The story behind Demon Defense starts with four different and unsuspecting citizens who are at the local convenient store, while the store owner is secretly conducting a voodoo ritual to summon demons to take over the planet.

In Demon Defense, the player can be one of four characters, each with special abilities. As the player, your job is to survive the waves of enemies while protecting the APD (anti-portal device) to keep the demons at bay. While playing video games, I like the challenge of using local objects to help me advance in the game. In Demon Defense, the player builds turrets and barricades out of everyday objects to help them survive each wave of demons. Think about turning a propane tank into a flame thrower, or a microwave and satellite dish into a death ray and you've got Demon Defense.
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Here is a playable demo of Demon Defense! Enjoy
Its a big game so it might take a minute to fully load.

NOTE: WHEN THE GAME HAS LOADED RIGHT CLICK AND GO TO FULL SCREEN. 
YOU CAN PLAY CO-OP IF YOU HAVE XBOX 360 CONTROLLERS!

Project Design Goals:

  • Create a 4 player Co-Op survival game within a 9 month time frame.
  • Demonstrate skills in game / level design, pacing and balancing, environment design and combat design.
  • Create a new twist to Tower defense and Third person shooter / survival games.
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Demon Defense Trailer


Trailer edited by Ross Hansen.
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Detailed Info:

 Demon Defense grew from a simple idea of merging Tower Defense and Third Person Shooter / survival games into one exciting team based game. Surviving the demo takes between 15-20 mins but the structure of the game can allow a set number of waves and enemies or a unlimited mode where the players can play for as long as they can survive.

The rest of this document highlights and demonstrates my work flow and what I did on this project:

Game & Level Design:

Features I designed and built for Demon Defense:
  • Narrative design (story, characters and locations)
  • Level design, prototyping, and construction
  • Build materials and Item locations 
  • Enemy spawn locations
  • Cover placement 
  • HUD
  • Environment set dressing and prop placement
  • Sound effects
  • Animation state machines
  • Hundreds of debugs, issues and tweaks

 Scripting C#

  • Player input
  • Dynamic camera with obstacle avoidance 
  • Character special abilities
  • AI path finding, attack and enmity system
  • Hit point detection and visual sprits
  • Main menu 
  • Character selection screen
  • Particle effects and sound
  • AI path indicator effect
  • Wave counter and enemy tracker

Initial Level designs:
Bubble diagrams and rough block out sketches.




Level Block out:

As the game progressed we began using some of the basic finished props to block in the levels. It became just as fast as white boxing and if things worked well we didn't have to rebuild the level which was very useful with a small team of 4.

Play testing & lesson learned:

It was real clear after the first play test that the level was to open and that we needed to place more cover and obstacles to create much longer paths for the enemies to travel. Every play test went the same way all the players would hang back at the base and wait for the enemies to come. This made the rest of the level wasted and made game play to hard because the enemies would all get to the base way to fast and at the same time. If the players wait to begin killing enemies till the last min the will always be greatly out numbered and lose. To fix this I added obstacles and barricades through out the level to Kite the enemies along a longer path. This also allowed us to create multiple combat zones and give the player areas to fall back to as well as helping them use more of the level.
We also noticed that even though the park was not a large area there were no large landmarks for players to orient themselves. I divided the park into three areas each with its own landmark, a fountain in the front, a giant archway in the center that leads to the back where the APD or base is. As a last added visual queue I added a large green ray above the APD so the player can locate the APD from any point in the level. Finally I created an effect that travels the same path as the enemies do to help the players prepare for the waves to come.







Game Document:







DemonDefense-GameDoc.pdf

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Demo Real


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Photos:



Induction iOS Game


Induction iOS Game (Playable)
Other Levels:   Mansion     Gas Station    Neighborhood


Here is a playable demo of Demon Defense Enjoy!

NOTE: WHEN THE GAME HAS LOADED RIGHT CLICK AND GO TO FULL SCREEN. YOU CAN PLAY CO-OP IF YOU HAVE XBOX 360 CONTROLLERS!

Its a big game so it might take a minute to fully load.