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Drake Pamplin:
Game Designer
Black and White
"Black and White" is a 2D side-scrolling platformer that follows protagonist White as he chases the dastardly librarian Black after she stole the work of famous authors and went back in time to "convince" the original authors to not write their works of fame, all the while using a mysterious machine to bring their story characters to life. The game has an air of general fun while spotlighting various historical texts of note like Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven or the books on the Knights of the Round Table. The aim of the game here is to paint literature in a much more approachable light. "See something cool in game about Sir Lancelot? Why not look him up?" and so on. I originally made a rough build of the game in Corona Simulator (showcased in the clip) that simply shows what basic game functionality would look like and am currently working on a full scale production in Unity.
Path
"Path" started out as a project for a course at ACU. Throughout its initial development lifetime, my team and I grew fond of the project and wanted to see it expand. The goal of the game is to navigate a maze of rotating tiles, collect three keys, and get to the exit as fast as possible to get a good star rating. When we finished, we had a fully functional rough build in Corona Simulator that made us want to build more. The current projection is to take up production once again as part of course project work and finalize the game using Android Studio as a proof of concept. Due to the small amount of work involved in adding additional levels and modules, creating additional content to make "Path" viable for a mobile release is our end goal for the first game my team ever worked on together.
EGGS
The idea for "EGGS" actually came from a writing prompt I came across while I was bored. Someone on a social media site asked the question, "Anyone know any good writing prompts?" and the top response was three simple words: Planets are eggs. This got me thinking. Eggs? For what? Who laid them? Would they make a mean omelette? As I answered each question (except the last one, admittedly), I found myself thinking up characters, scenarios, and designs. I kept sketching and writing until I finally asked the big question of what the game would look like. As Corona Simulator is really efficient at making quick builds, I threw together some simple graphics and made a quick mock up of what the combat would look like (see attached video). With that phase complete, development now continues in Unity.
Transmission
For the 2018 January Game Jam, the theme was "transmission." For the 48 hours I had to develop my game from the ground up, I decided to do a short horror title where the player navigates his ship through nearly pitch black asteroid field with only his headlight to guide him. Using a ship model I quickly threw together in Blender and pre-existing asteroid models provided by Unity, I was able to make a quick, playable demo for the turn in time 48 hours later. Using the WASDQE keys to control ship orientation and the arrow keys to control ship navigation, players are able to completely control their ship in the three dimensional space of the asteroid field. To achieve the horror/thriller feel of the game, I didn't want to go down the route of cheap jump scares. Instead, I took a page from the creators of "Slender: The Eight Pages" and decided to do a simple version of their tactic. Horror in the game is created through ambient sound, not any kind of visual. As players navigate the asteroid field, the only sound that accompanies them is the booming of the transmission frequency they are tracking and the sound of their thrusters. I enjoyed creating the game so much that I definitely plan to continue adding functionality to the game until I get to my original vision of what I want this game to eventually be, so stay tuned for that! During the 48 hours, I completed:
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2 builds of the game
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2 3D models
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12 C# scripts
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1 game scene
In addition, I have linked playable builds down below if you want to check it out yourself:
Mac: Download
Windows: Download
Linux: Download
8-bit Survival
This survival game is a current passion project of mine. After purchasing a load of 2D 8-bit assets from Humble Bundles, I wanted to put them to use in a way that would showcase not only the asset creators' skills in the creation of the assets, but also my own skills as a scenario designer and programmer. For this project, I challenged myself to incorporate things I have not done before in previous projects such as pausing, a round system, an in game shop for the player to utilize, and a basic save system. At the time of the recording, the game is around 50% complete. Made in Unity using assets from the Game Dev Market.
Homecoming
Homecoming is the product of the 2019 Global Game Jam. For this jam, the prompt was "what home means to you." To me, a broke college student coming back to my parents house in the middle of winter, home was a warm place where your parents welcomed you with open arms. So that is exactly what I made: a series of difficult journeys that end with the player embracing their partner in their arms after a long trip. The game itself is complete now and will be published to Steam soon. Made in Unity with models from Blender 2.8.
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