My University Projects

Here's a showcase of some of my favourite University projects, spanning from my very first game from my first year, to interesting technological showcases, to polished personal favourites.

Please also check out my Game Jam Projects once you've had a look around!

Checkmate Evolution (Jan-May 2023)

Perhaps my all-time favourite Uni Project, Checkmate Evolution (ChEvo) was a group project for my 3rd Year module, Console Game Development. As the name suggests, it is an evolved take on Chess, with added features such as a pre-game draft phase, turn-based combat between pieces, and randomly spawning power-ups as the game progresses. This project was made using Unity 2021 and a Nintendo Switch DevKit, and went on to be shortlisted for TIGA and Creative Assembly's Best Student Project 2023 - an achievement that the team and I are extremely proud of.

My role within this group was as a Gameplay Programmer, Game Designer, and Production Leader - leading me to work on technical aspects like creating a combat system, as well as macro-scale team, project, and repository management.

A video devlog & summary is available on YouTube - check it out here!

Snail Trail (Jan-May 2023)

Snail Trail was a cross-disciplinary collaboration between Computer Games Technology and Sound Engineering & Production, and is a horror-collectathon inspired by Slender (and the viral "what if you were chased by a snail?" hypothetical).

I took the role of Team Leader for this project, managing the team and teaching the basics of the engine to the non-games students who were unfamiliar with it. Most of the sound effects for this game were recorded, edited, and implemented in-house, giving me experience working in a professional level foley studio, and the FMOD Audio Engine. My personal contributions were the player controller and game manager, as well as the torch, footstep, and weather sound effects

If you want, you can download and play this game yourself via itch.io - or, there's a video demo showing the game off on YouTube

Long Rest (Sept 2023- Jan 2024)

Long Rest is a C++ Computer Graphics project made in my 4th year of University. It expanded my C++ skillset, and was my first foray into Shader Programming in GLSL. It also exposed me to specialist libraries like Eigen and OpenCV.

A great takeaway from this project was improving my ability to debug, profile, and critique my own work. Through a combination of an automatic render-time profiler and specialist tools like RenderDoc, I was able to efficiently identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies, and tackle them through my development process.

SLM Training Simulator (Jan - May 2024)

This was my Master's Project, and the last piece of official University Work I ever did. 4 people were included in the development team, and we worked alongside both our project supervisor and an external professional client. The purpose of this project was to create a digital, gamified training simulator for the use of Sound Level Meters.

While the project was not an immense technical challenge - it necessarily had to be simple to play due to its target audience - it was an incredibly useful experience because it taught me how to design for specific audiences, gather user feedback, and work alongside both technical and non-technical teammates.

Carnival Shooter (Sept 2020 - Jan 2021)

Unnamed Carnival Shooter was a piece of second-year coursework, and was the very first game I ever made in exclusively C++ without an out-of-the-box engine. In fact, other than SDL2 for input and graphics management, it was entirely built by me. Some of the highlights of this project were creating a personalised tilemap reader, tile-based collision detection and moving non-player objects.

Goblin Simulator (Sept 2022- Jan 2023)

Goblin Simulator was an experiment in various AI-NPC behaviours, created as an individual project in my 3rd year. Through this project, I explored the ways NPCs undergo decision-making - via methods like Behaviour Trees and Finite State Machines - as well as how they act upon those decisions.

I made a basic village scene and spread a weighted A* Pathfinding Grid across it, so that characters could navigate across it. Other agents, like ambient creatures, relied on Steering Behaviours rather than pathfinding so that they could move in more abstract ways.

Hunting Ground (Sept 2023- Jan 2024)

Hunting Ground is a prototype MOBA, created as a chance to explore the world of Networked and Online Multiplayer. Using Unity as the engine, and Photon Engine as the network backed basis, this project was an enlightening experience for learning about optimizing packet size, networking physics & collisions, and server- and user-specific UI elements.

Custom Raytracer (Jan-May 2021)

As part of my second year, I made a custom, ground-up raytracer in C++ with no additional libraries as part of my Computer Graphics coursework.

While the final render (on the right) is certainly a bit rough around the edges, this project was an invaluable experience in learning the maths and tech behind rendering metallic, translucent, and rough materials.

Booty Rush (Sept 2019 -Jan 2020)

Why not include the very first game I ever made here? Booty Rush is a 2D Competitive fighting game where players have to navigate a strong current and wind, spin their boat to get the right angle, and fire their cannon to beat their enemies.

By absolutely no means my finest or greatest work, but it's fun to include in this list as a point of reference for how far I've come since first starting game development.