End Cloud Digital

Welcome, we are End Cloud Digital, a new games studio working out of Falmouth University in Cornwall, UK. We are a team of 9 university students of various disciplines and we created Zephyr. Below is a brief summary of the challenges we each overcame to make the game as great as it is!

Programming

Adrian Carter

I’m a second year BSc Computing for Games student and I created the initial first person teleportation prototype we chose to base our game off of, therefore I worked mainly on refining the player’s teleportation abilities. The most challenging being the long range teleport. I created several other small mechanics such as various traps and hazards. I was also largely responsible for implementing the audio and hand animations towards the end of development. There are a few mechanics I made during development that didn’t make it into the final game, including several iterations of a mana system for the teleportation abilities.

I also worked on some non-programming aspects of the game, including creating particle effects for the Updraft and Tornado prefabs and designing and creating experimental levels.

These are the main elements I am responsible for:

  • Teleportation Ability
  • Blink Ability
  • Moving Platforms
  • Spike Trap
  • Dart Trap
  • Jump Pad
  • Implementation of Audio
  • Implementation of Hand Animations

Sam Auber

I’m a second year BSc Computing for Games student and I primarily worked on the core gameloop of Zephyr, the player controller, the end boss and the UI and UX of the game. The most challenging thing I worked on was probably the Game Manager as it sets up the rules of the game and allows for the gameloop to work for each level.

I also worked on some shader programing for the grass and butterfilies in the game and I also made a cool corruption shader for the End Boss that unfortunatley didn’t make it into the final game.

And for the majority of the project I had the role of Scrum Master to help oragnise the tasks and workload for each team member and give a clear goal and focus for each sprint.

These are the main elements of the game I am responsible for:

  • Rigidbody Character Controller
  • Game Manager
  • UI menus
  • Level Select
  • Scoreboard
  • Grass Shader
  • Butterflies shader
  • End Boss

Arturs Zingis

I am also a second year BSc Computing For Games programming student and I primarily worked on implementing the traps for the game, such as:

  • Falling Plaftorm
  • Swinging blade
  • Sawblade

And other game elements such as:

  • UI (Credits/Settings screens)
  • Floater script
  • Player platform parent script

Whilst also assisting with the development of the:

  • Moving Platforms

During the course of this project, I was responsible for the traps that the player would encounter throughout the game to improve the game mechanically by adding physics based hazards to place around the stages. I enjoyed testing the traps and making sure they worked as intended by the designers of the team. On the tail end of the project, I helped with some of the UI elements of the game as well as a cosmetic Floater script for the Main Menu. This project was a learning experience for me but I still enjoyed it nonetheless.

Art

Oviya Vendan

I am a BA Game Artist and I was assigned as the concept artist for the game. During the earlier stages of the game I made visual development art that gave the team a streamlined idea of what the final game would look and feel like once complete. I was also responsible for designing the concept art for the game’s assets such as the walls, archways, the axe trap and the final boss. As we went for an Aztec themed game I made sure the structures resonated with the time period and followed a style that felt cohesive and appropriate to the gameplay.

I also made concept art for the main character of the game which was used as reference for the first person arm assets (which I created in 3d later on).

I was also responsible for concepting, modelling and texturing the final boss character for the game.

Thomas Pepper

A 2nd year Game Development: Artist student specialising in environmental art. I had various roles as an artist throughout the development of this game. This includes; creating the visual style, asset creation, particle effects, as well as level design. The main assets that I created for the game are:

  • Island platforms
  • Ruins (Walls, pillar, Archway, rope bridge, etc.)
  • Foliage (Trees and bushes)
  • Traps and hazards

I was also given the duty to keep the visuals coherent as this project was out first with this large an art team. Meaning after I developed the art style of the game, I had to then teach my fellow artists the skills and methods used to create content within the style. During the last half of development, I took over the progress of working on level design. I designed the levels so that they flow smoothly as well as consistent. I got them to a standard where they were dressed and able to pass back to the team’s designers to then tweak and polish them as they saw fit.

Emma Clapp

I’m a second year BA Game Art student and I began by working on concept art for the project before moving on to 3D modelling as the game progressed. In the early stages I created visual concepts to explore the style and mood of the game to guide the direction the prototypes could be taken in. I then worked on concepts for architectural structures and the floating islands that the game would take place on, for a cohesive idea of what the final game could look like. I spent some time working on the main character concepts but it was decided that the only visible part of the main character would be the arms, and so a lot of this was not put in game. I also concepted some foliage that could be used to make the environment more immersive. I was responsible for concepting, modelling and texturing the artefacts found at the end of each level. I then 3d modelled foliage and a large column asset.

Dian Donchev

I am Dian Donchev and I am a 3D artist and Graphic Designer. My interests are not only in games but other businesses as well. I believe game-making techniques and CG artists could be beneficial for a large number of different projects. Creating interactive visualisations for advertisements, architects, movies and more. I Believe people should excel in more than one area therefore almost equally important with my artist’s abilities I develop entrepreneurship skills via different business competitions. Moreover, my hobbies include new technology, gaming, fashion and more. Developing such a game was a challenging task but I am glad that I have such amazing people in this team so that the process was smooth and entertaining.

Design

Jo Giddings

I am a BA Game Development student specialising in design. My main role on the team was as technical designer, working on developing and balancing the mechanics of the game. This included balancing the player characters movement and the teleporting abilities and developing traps and hazards for the game. I was also involved with some level design prototyping and was responsible for making the tutorial levels of the game. Additionally I was in charge of running and analysing playtests for our game.

Ryan Loosemore

I’m a second year BA Game Development student on the Design course. Early on in the development of the game I helped work on the prototypes we created and tested to get a feel for the game we wanted to make and worked on the creation of the design document after we had settled on an idea.

Throughout the rest of the development time I was working on level design, creating level block outs to test how different mechanics would be implemented. As the game progressed, I spent more time working on levels with the finished prefabs that we used in the final game. Whilst most of these levels in full did not come to see the final set of levels it provided a good level of insight into what made levels fun, and some aspects of the levels I created were used within the final build of the game.

In a list, here are the main elements of the game I worked on:

  • Early design of a prototype for a game idea
  • Design document covering all early aspect of what we wanted within the game
  • Basic level block outs, used for internal and external testing
  • Polished level designs, using final prefabs and materials, some of which making it into the final levels of the finished product.