Games I worked on while at DigiPen
About the Games A large part of the focus at DigiPen is on our annual game projects. We produce a solo game project in the first semester, a team game project in the second semester, and then a team game each year for the following three years. These projects have various requirements (text based, 2D, 3D, physics, networking, etc.) and are intended to be miniature versions of the real world game development process. We write game design documents and technical design documents, generate schedules, producer reports and post-mortems. In all the team projects each team member has an official "hat" such as Producer or Technical Director, with the attendent responsibilities. Naturally we all write code as well. The process actually reminds me a lot of working at a startup. As it turns out there's nothing that brings home the difficulties of making games quite like actually making games on a tight deadline with demanding requirements and very little outside assistance. It has never been easy but I'm proud to say that each of the projects listed on this page was delivered on time and making that happen has been an enormous learning experience. There's a lot of me in these games, from the design to the code to (in some cases) the art, and I'm proud of all of them. Seeing them all lined up like this, in chronological order, really makes it clear just how much I've progressed over the last few years. One thing that hasn't changed, however, is that I still love making games and there's nothing I'd rather be doing. I hope you enjoy playing my games, and if you feel so inclined feel free to send me feedback (positive, negative, or whatever else) at habibloew (at) gmail (dot) com. | BossinaboxTeam project, 2 semesters, 2006-2007 Collaborators: John Jensen, Austin McGee, David Siems Technologies: C++, Lua, DirectX Official Bossinabox Website at DigiPen.edu Bossinabox is currently in production as a senior game project at DigiPen. The engine was built by a team of four students, three of whom stayed on to build the current incarnation of the game. It will be available for download in April 2007. For a sneak peek you can check out the official game website at DigiPen's Game Gallery. During the first three months of Bossinabox's production it was actually another game called Daredevil Zombie Hunter (you can check out the DDZH prototype here) but when the second semester rolled around one of our team mates got a job and we were forced to re-evaluate where we wanted to take the game. Realizing that we wouldn't be able to bring the DDZH idea to fruition with our new resource constraints we stripped the code base down to the bare engine and started work on a new, far simpler, game design. It is a testament to our flexible engine design and thorough unit testing that we were able to make such extensive alterations to the game without ever having a crash or any reason to question the stability of the engine. At this point I've done a bit of everything on this project, but my primary responsibilities were in the design and construction of the core engine architecture in the first semester, while in the second semester I have been focused on implementing the boss behaviors, the physics system (we use physically based animation for the boss), and implementing post processing effects in our graphics engine. Update (01/14/08): Bossinabox was featured in the "52 Free Games" features of the Feb. 2008 issue of "Games for Windows the official magazine". Update (01/15/08): Bossinabox is also linked from 1up.com's 101 Free Games feature. FlingTeam project, 2 semesters, 2005-2006 Collaborators: Michael Felice, Russell Hochenedel, Austin McGee Technologies: C++, Lua, OpenGL, FMOD Download Fling from DigiPen.edu (11.2 MB)
Completed over two semesters with a team of four students, Fling was
conceived as a mix between artillery and light RTS style gameplay. In
the end the RTS portion of the gameplay was delegated to the AI running
the player's minions. This frees up the player to focus on flinging
giant (sometimes explosive) boulders from their catapult to destroy as
much of the enemy infrastructure as possible. Meanwhile their minions
fight for resources, build buildings, and hope a boulder the size of a
Buick doesn't land on their heads. Destruction generates "mayhem"
which speeds up the player's minions, who then gather more resources,
which allows for bigger, more destructive boulders. In the endgame it
is up to the player to destroy the enemy citadels. Ivar's AdieuTeam project, 2 semesters, 2004-2005 Collaborators: Joshua Beeler, David Siems Technologies: C++, DirectX, FMOD Download Ivar's Adieu from DigiPen.edu (27.9 MB) Ivar's Adieu is my favorite of all the games I've made at DigiPen. Set in a whimsical circular world it puts players in the role of the lonely fisherman Ivar. Ivar runs, jumps, swings and flings his way to a bigger and better place. This was a two semester team project, and for a team of three with what we knew then it was very, very ambitious. The entire world is constructed from complex mass-spring systems, which we thought might be easier than writing a rigid body physics engine. Boy were we wrong about that! Tactical Combat Simulator
Team project, 1 semester, 2004 Collaborators: Joshua Beeler, Chad Hinkle, Joe Bilt Technologies: C++, ASCII Art Download TCS from DigiPen.edu (303 KB) Tactical Combat Simulator (TCS) was my second game project at DigiPen. This was a one semester team project with a very specific requirement: it had to be a text game. In the game you lead an army of mixed units into combat on a randomly generated hex map. TCS was an interesting game to develop, but as it turns out it's not a terribly interesting game to play. A large part of the problem is certainly the lack of graphics, but the fact that nobody on the team was really into turn based war gaming can't have helped. Space Zappo
Solo project, 1 semester, 2003 Technologies: C++, OpenGL, DirectPlay Download Space Zappo from DigiPen.edu (402 KB) Space Zappo was my first full game. Completed in my first semester at DigiPen as a solo project, Space Zappo is an homage to XPilot, a game I used to play on Solaris when I worked the night shift as a system administrator. My version clearly isn't a good as XPilot, but given that it was my first semester at DigiPen and I had not yet received any serious game development instruction, I'm proud of what I accomplished. The game is multi-player only (I didn't have time to write any AI), and it can be charitably described as fiendishly difficult. |