Lockpicking mechanic

I've been playing around with an idea for my own lockpicking mini-game (obviously influenced by Bethesda's). The clou behind this one is, that it is heavily dependent on player skill. Although the lock difficulty influences the lockpick tolerance, a player with enough skill/training can open any lock at an instant. At the moment input is only possible via controller (two analog sticks). Play in Unity Webplayer (Game controller is required!)

There Goes The Neighborhood - Unity

 

I put a Unity webplayer version of the TGTN Project online. This level was created after the project was over and is based on the Tutorial Town level design document (pdf). I'm still thinkering every now and then on the scene, but there's no real gameplay here (yet?). Anyhow you can grasp some of the atmosphere a finished project would have provided.

Play in Unity Webplayer

Global Game Jam 2012: Jormungandr

 

I survived my first global game jam and had lots of fun developing with complete strangers! The location in Vienna was great and everything, except from the occasional WiFi malfunction, went smoothly. 

I participated in a team of 4 people making a fake nordic boardgame with Unity.

You can play it online at: GGJ2012 Jormungandr

Train Project: Exploration

On the train ride home for christmas I decided to sketch out a game concept. A friend kindly gave me a theme for this 3 hour doodle - 'Exploration'.
The result is a simple game where you explore the wasteland, looking for locations and trying to survive. A thing that does not work well is that the player has no chance in predicting what might linger in a ruin.
You control with the arrow keys and constantly lose energy (bar on the top).

Download here (exe)

36h GameJam: Herocraft

My old school hosted her first GameJam, 36h instead of 48h. I gladly joined in to see some old colleagues and do some developing. The theme of the competition was "Dude, where's my super powers?!" so we went for a super hero setting.

You are in charge of hero operations worldwide and have to defeat villians in order to win the game. If you run out of funds or time, evil will win.
You don't know at the beginning how super powers react on each other, so you have to find out!

Play it here (flash).

Arms Race Prototype

Arms Race is a small prototype evolving around the simple idea of timer-based actions. Each action the player and the AI opponents take, blocks further actions for a specific amount of time. How long further actions are blocked depends on where an action is taken: 'Stealing' oil from other countries is quicker but upsets them, whereas drilling oil 'at home' takes more time but is okay with everyone.

Download here (.exe)

Pirates of the Deep Space

Pirates of the Deep Space was a game installation performed at the Ars Electronica Festival 2011. The project is the successor of the HEIST project.

Two players could compete in their pirate ships to destroy the other one's - thus gaining control of the archipelago.
Players controlled their ships movement by positioning themselves on a bar, affecting their ship's course. Each player had a small miniature of their ship in front of them, divided into 3 pieces. These pieces represented the ship's healthpoints.
If a player could see the other player's ship on his screen, he could start throwing cannonballs (sand filled rubber balls) at the enemy's miniature ship. To reload a player had to abandon his ship for a short time and regather his cannonballs. A player had won when the other's miniature ship was destroyed.

the team

the level (the skull even has LEDs)

interface with miniature ships

Apart from capturing the webcams integrated in each ship and playing soundfiles, each part of the game was executed by team members. In pairs of two team members per ship, one was announcing the other which way the player steers the ship, while the other constantly moved the ship forward - adjusting it's course.
The archipelago was created out of painted and decorated Styrofoam chunks - spending my younger days with Warhammer miniatures and terrain finally paid off.
The island were placed on a colored wooden plate, allowing us to change the leveldesign from play through to play through.

Check out the videos below!
The one on the left shows how players were controlling the game, the one on the right what actually happened 'ingame'.

The team consisted of students and lecturers of the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Campus Hagenberg.
The name 'Pirates of the Deep Space' comes from the place in the Ars Electronica Center where the game took place - the 'Deep Space', a huge room with 4 HD projectors directed on projection areas on the floor and up front.