Making a game is a lot like baking a cookies. You start with your basics; flour, eggs, sugar, butter. Then you can start to add your own touches. Maybe you add chocolate and peanut butter chips, or maybe an extra splash of vanilla. The goals are the same as well; to create something that everyone can enjoy together. 

 
 
shepherd girl and sheep.png

Sheep Dogs

Rounding up some woolly friends.

The Idea for Sheep Dogs came from my wives desire to pet a sheep. I asked myself how would I make a game about getting sheep. Several text documents later I had fleshed out an idea for having dogs pushing sheep around a field like a game of soccer. By the weekend I had made a prototype out of construction paper. Within months I had commissioned art and iterated through several board designs. Sheep Dogs still has a few numbers to be smoothed out but it really captures the feel of trying to heard a flock of sheep running every which way.

 

Robot Arena 3

Building a Bot

Bot Lab tutorial

The Bot lab is on of the primary features of Robot Arena 3. The design of the bot lab changed a lot between Robot Arena 2 and 3 so I wanted to create a short guide to highlight all the different tools available so the players can make the most of their time in the bot lab. 

Heres a quick walkthrough on how to build a simple bot in Robot Arena 3
 
 

Designing a Level

Mario Maker

 

Mario Maker is a great tool to practice and show off level design. The benefits are Mario Maker come from the fact that the game mechanics of Mario are simple and well know by most. Mario can Run. Mario can jump. From there you can use various block and enemies to fill a level making Mario's journey from left to right either easy or difficult. 

The following is series of videos I have put together to show case levels I have made. Additionally I talk about why I made the choices I did in creating the level and analyze what works and what doesn't.

 
Here is the first in a new series where I walk you through my own levels. Bookmark ID: 6B23-0000-0204-2A6C www.CanPlayGames.com @CanPlayGames
Continuing my Mario Maker Series in Level Walk Throughs, we have a showdown to prove once and for all who the real Baby Bowser is. Bookmark ID: D88B-0000-004B-E7FB www.CanPlayGames.com @CanPlayGames
The name of the game is Speed in this level walkthrough. Bookmark ID: 12A2-0000-0033-7219 www.CanPlayGames.com @CanPlayGames
 
 

Senior Game Project

Tick Tock Toybox

2014

The goal of Tick Tock Toybox was to create a strategy RPG where instead of move points and action points the players managed time. To best represent the limited amount of time given to our units we thought that windup toys would be best. 

The Map for Tick Tock Toybox is designed to look like a mix between a bunch of toy scattered about and the way the child playing with the toys sees the world. 


More Soon... Gathering up screenshots.