Rings of Lies

Contribution:

     During my time working with Knockaine Games, I was the project lead for Rings of Lies. I put a lot of effort into pushing our team to produce the best product we could make. As a project lead, I kept constant connections with different teams to maintain cohesion and keep everyone on track to meet project deadlines. I also provided feedback on work so that members were confident in their efforts towards the project. During my time as a project lead, I sought to create an environment where team members felt welcome to express their thoughts and ideas towards the game. This allowed us to create a highly collaborative workspace, where each member could have equal input towards the game.

     I also worked as a level designer, collaborating with others to ideate mechanics and how each level should be laid out to make gameplay as interactive and interesting as possible. Our level design team worked hard to create gameplay that was balanced for both of the characters that the player could be. We focused on making the main characters, Orla and Abner, have distinct abilities from each other. Having Orla use magic to traverse the level while Abner used his strength, and both aiding each other to make it further through the level.

     Once we established their abilities and how they interact with the world, I focused on laying out each level. I created blockouts that utilized both characters abilities in an interesting and balanced way, aiming to keep players engaged and enabling our main mechanic of switching between characters as much as possible. We did not want players to use one character for two long and forget about their counterpart, so the main focus was designing player paths that switched between the Abner and Orla frequently.

     Another role I performed was as a foliage artist. I created an array of trees to set dress the forest that the player ventures through. I aimed to create trees that would provide enough variety to make the forest still have contrast while not making them stand apart too much from each other. We referenced trees that could be found in a forest in Ireland. I then created textures that could be used on any of the trees, as well as a few different kinds of leaves to create variety in the landscape. I also created a few trees that incorporated the more magical feel of the game, making them twist in a spiral form to coincide with the games theme of rings.

     As well as trees, I provided plants to dress the world with as well, adding to the ground foliage for more diversity. The plants and flowers helped to add more color and variety to the levels.

     Our game also focused on Orla's powers being able to shrink and grow the plants around her. I worked to create twisting vines that grew or shrink when the player interacted with them as Orla. These vines would grow or shrink around certain objects, be cleared away from the path, or grown for Abner to climb up. I created the vines using the growth animations in Speedtree, creating interactive foliage for the player to be further immersed with.  
     I acted as our cinematic artist for the game, creating cutscenes for each level. I edited our opening scene, as well as cutscenes between each of our levels. I worked closely with our level designers and tech team, ensuring that cinematics played at the correct times, and helped to convey the right information for players. Depending on certain events in the game, we also triggered cutscenes to help move the story along.

     Using the Unreal level sequencer, I also captured content used in the trailer. Our team worked with a storyboard artist, and I used the layout provided to cut and capture scenes and gameplay together for our trailer.