Jack Murray
Game Designer
Feel free to take a look at my work below!
Work
Rogue Rally Developer Internship @ 302 Interactive
Rogue Rally is a single player kart racing roguelike where players travel through randomly generated tracks collecting upgrades and racing against time to explore the mysteries of Phytotron.
Genre: Kart Racer Roguelike
Engine: Unity 3D
Team: 302 Interactive
Duration: 1/9/2022 - 4/24/2023
Platform: PC
Roles & Responsibilities
Designer
Designed, whiteboxed, and implemented 8 rooms into the random generation system.
Designed new Expedition Mode; a challenge mode where players collect more macro-progression currency the longer they stay at the risk of the currency they’ve already acquired.
Adjusted boss AI’s values to create a more consistent and challenging race.
Programmed camera FOV adjustment system to improve acceleration feel.
A large room that used the new protodroid enemies.
Small turn room designed with with a risky jump on the cliff path to a timer powerup.
Hookscrap
Hookscrap is a 2D space shootem-up roguelike with a twist: your only weapon is a harpoon! Players must scrap ships for parts to travel through the galaxy, chasing down the Space Police Force flagship.
Genre: Top Down Shooter Roguelike
Engine: Unity 2D
Team: Surprise Studios
Duration: 5/15/2022 - 4/27/2023
Platform: PC
Release: 4/27/2023
Roles & Responsibilities
Designer
Responsible for prototyping mechanics, items, and enemies.
Used crosstables to design difficulty curve against player progression.
Iterated movement and harpoon mechanics to create fast paced physics based combat.
Created and maintained documentation throughout the project.
Creative Director
Led team of four from pre-production to launch on Steam.
Drew, animated and implemented over 150 pixel art assets.
Designed dozens of custom particle effects.
Ensured other member’s work accurately represented the project’s vision.
Breakdown of enemy ships spawned per wave compared to player’s components crafted
By destroying ships, the player can collect scrap to craft upgrades for their ship
Tractorbeamscrap
We needed a way for the player to scrap ships for parts that didn’t involve crashing into them. The tractor beam served this purpose by giving the player the ability to catch lone ships and slowly pull them in to be scrapped.
The beam had a few glaring issues almost immediately:
The beam was too simple. It offered little player mastery failing the game goal of replayability.
No interactivity with the environment. You can’t have physics based gameplay with no beneficial way to interact with asteroids and other ships.
Physics based Harpoon
The next iteration introduced a physics based harpoon. It disabled enemies and allowed you to adjust the length of the cable using the scroll wheel. The hooked object could be released if the player released mouse one. This allowed the player to either pull objects in or start to swing them around, potentially releasing the object flinging it through space.
This hook was a great step in the right direction but wasn’t quite right yet.
Using objects as a ranged weapon was too difficult. Aiming towards specific targets was inconsistent at best, impossible at worst.
Swinging objects was inconsistent and took too long for the player to wind up into an effective spin.
Adjusting the length of the harpoon with scroll-wheel was awkward, especially when just trying to pull an object all the way in to scrap.
Launching Harpoon
Our last iteration changed significantly and nailed the game goals.
The harpoon now automatically retracts allowing the player to focus on combat and movement.
You can launch objects from the hook using mouse 2 allowing the player to have a consistent means of targeting ships from range.
The cable no longer acted as a rope through Unity’s physics system. Instead, we faked the weight of the cable to make it more consistent. Now the player could be sure of how long it would take to start spinning and object around themselves.
With some player feedback from sound and visual effects we facilitated the explosive gameplay we set out to make.
Designing Hookscrap’s Harpoon
My design process always begins with constraints. I identify any limits such as control scheme, narrative, development time, and team skill. Our team had a four month development period so keeping our scope small was a priority. After establishing constraints, determining the game goal is always my next step. I particularly focus on player emotions and use that as a guiding focus for my mechanics.
Hookscrap’s Game Goal
“Facilitate explosive, fast-paced, physics-based action gameplay with deep long-term strategy and replayability as the player battles against the campy Space Police Force.”
After making the game goal I began prototyping to find the fun within my constraints. In this case the player’s main mechanic began as a humble tractorbeam.
The Deep
The Deep is a 3D third-person turn based strategy game developed in Unity 3D. Players take the role of Captain of the S.S. Pequod, a submarine sent to investigate the source of mysterious disasters in the Marianas Trench. Players explore cave systems uncovering beautiful bio-luminescent life, dangerous creatures, and mysterious ruins of an ancient evil. Find valuable resources, use sonar to plan your routes carefully, and survive dangerous sea monster encounters in strategic turn based combat.
Genre: Turn Based Strategy
Engine: Unity 3D
Team: High Pressure Studios
Duration: 3/4/2022 - 4/29/2022
Platform: PC
Roles & Responsibilities
Creative Director
United artistic, narrative, and gameplay vision through clear documentation in the GDD and ASG.
Constructively communicated between team members to reach desired quality and styling of assets before approval.
Designer
Wrote and iterated the GDD throughout the project using clear technical language.
Iterated through multiple level designs to accommodate critical path time and environmental storytelling.
Wrote, edited and implemented dialogue to accentuate narrative.
Concepted Empower/Blocked & equipment game mechanics.
Statistically evaluated combat encounters using crosstable.
The spiny bulb in the bottom center is a mimic enemy I designed to look like the flashbulb collectable.
I used HDRP’s lighting and post processing to make the magma biome feel extra hot.
Terra Nova
Terra Nova 2D real time strategy game where the player leads their aliens in colonizing new worlds. Players must manage resource collection, population growth and defenses as hordes of T-Rex attack at night.
Genre: Real Time Strategy
Engine: Unity 2D
Team Size: 4
Duration: 3/5/2021 - 3/29/2021
Platform: PC, Android
Roles & Responsibilities
2D Artist
Learned Aseprite, created all environmental assets and animations.
Designed and created UI elements
Designer
Planned building costs and functionalities.
Statistically analyzed and balanced resource production, enemy statistics, and player defense statistics.
Designed all levels to present unique challenges using resources placement and tilesets.
