My Work
My current and main focus, this game is my most challenging work thus far and is also a continuation of a project I had begun work on in University as my final piece. It encompasses first person medieval combat against NPC's while also providing an entirely different way to play the game via top down strategic building. Intented for five players, four will fight and scavange as they progress through the dungeon while the fifth player serves as the dungeon master with one goal: to build a dungeon and fill it with enemies, traps and treasure to beat the four adventuring players.
Fight the Dungeon!
Crystal Chaos
Set as a top down arcade shooter in a fantasy mineshaft. This game is actually a university team project in which I was assigned as the lead Designer in our team of 30. This game is actually downloadable and playable on Itch.io and if you do decide to play it, I hope you enjoy your time playing!
A game I attempted to create in college. Set in a house, it played more like a tech demonstration than
an actual game. It was intended to be a basic "hallucination" game with replayability found in levelled
"hallucination" events being selected at random with aid of trigger points found throughout the house.
Monophobia
My Skills
Technical Skills
Creative Skills
Creative
Problem
Solving
Communication
Creativity
Desire to Learn
Misc
Social
Friendly
Polite
Visual Planner
Dedicated
My Thoughts
Hi! I’m Daniel, I’m 26 and am steadily working towards my dream of working in the industry to be a full time Games Designer!
"An interesting introduction Daniel…" I pretend to hear you ask. "But how long have you been doing this whole “dream” thing for? What’s the story behind why you’re here and what compelled you to this industry to begin with?"
Well, to answer that, I shall address them one at a time in a cliché FAQ block!
How long have you been doing this whole "dream" thing?
I’ve been aspiring towards being a Game Designer since I was in middle school. Around that time, I was already into playing games, with the Wii, DS, Xbox 360 and even my first PC being built with whatever I could get my hands on at the time so that I could run Minecraft.
Eventually, as I played, I got curious, how did games get made? was there any process? Could I even make my own? Was it hard? I learned pretty quickly after showing some school friends my pitch (a “trailer” with clips from various movies and free stock footage playing to Adele’s “Skyfall”) for my new zombie survival game that it was… a lot harder than I assumed…
What was your process and how did you develop your skills?
I had been tinkering in Unity and the Cryengine at the time, but with my age and the youtube tutorials at the time, I didn’t get very far with the zombie game idea. However, the drive to learn more and keep trying kept me going. Over time, the focus shifted to instead learn the basics... Movement, character functions, how engines worked, button and their reactions in games and storing information…. I switched to Unreal Engine 4 shortly thereafter once I figured out which engine I was more comfortable with.
How did education fit into your journey?
By the time I was in high school, I had a list of game ideas on my phone which I would add to as they came, as well as testing features out on my computer when I could. Every attempt either proved a feature’s success or taught me more about the system and what I did wrong to improve upon. I began to think of what I wanted in my life, what job did I want to do?...
I was told to dream big a lot, and the biggest I could see myself realistically achieving was making other people happy by making games for them. Games gave me a creative spark, a comfort, a story and sometimes even a retreat, so why not try and recapture that to inspire others?
From here on out, I began to specialise into games design, learning what I could, understanding what I needed to do to get into the industry and taking notes where I could. By 18, I was heading into college to study Games Design further and by 22, I was walking into Cambridge to continue my studies in University.
Where are you now in your career?
Now at 25, with my course finally completed, I’ve got a released project under my belt and aim to release another once it’s completed, each time putting my learned experience to practice as I go.
Whats your preffered engine?
While I originally worked with Unity, the Unreal Engine has become my standard.
What's next?
My main plan here on out is to create more conceptual designs to showcase.
If I come up with an idea, I create a little write up about it, create a demonstration of it and how it works behind the scenes and then expand upon it or take away something that I’ve learned from exploring that path of development.
I also intend to work further on “Fight the Dungeon!” all while searching for a company to work for in the industry to learn more from, as well as take some pride in knowing I was part of a team which released something to the public to enjoy.