Game Lab is a special class at UTD where every student works together to create a single polished game by the end of the semester. The students handle every aspect of the game creation process, from the overall creative vision, to the level design, to the art assets and particle effects, down to every line of code. Students are assigned into different groups based on their skills and what they want to work on, and I was chosen to be a Game Designer.
As a Game Designer, I attended bi-weekly meetings with the design team as we determined what the game should play like. Specifically, I was responsible for procedural level generation, enemy placement, and data persistence.
Despite the many challenges of this semester, namely everybody working remotely and changes to the class structure, I think we were still able to create an impressive game. It was inspiring to be a part of the creation process of such a large project, and to shape what it would eventually grow into.
The button below will let you download Drosera for yourself (Windows only), and underneath that you can see the official release trailer. Towards the bottom of the page are the full credits for the game.
Trailer courtesy of Hector Mavrakis
The document below is one of the pages I created as a Game Designer. Since I was responsible for procedural level generation, I worked closely with the level designers and programmers. During our meetings I noticed that we were sometimes getting certain terms confused with each other. So, drawing on some of my experience from philosophy, I made a definition sheet with useful information and color coding to better define which term meant what. There were much fewer confusions after that, so I'd call it a success!
Level generation terminology
Full credits
