Game Developer | Programmer
Nicholas
Connell
C# and C++ Game Programmer
SHOWCASE
HEART OF THE FOREST
Group Project
You play as a red capped mushroom, asked by the Forest God to help fight against a Corrupted God, find, and return the Heart of the Forest before the corruption takes over.
The Heart of the Forest is a 2.5D adventure platformer group project made in 15 weeks. I was responsible for developing the AI for the enemies and NPCs, using a finite state machine, as well as implementing A-Star as the main pathfinding algorithm. I built the AI with custom editors and inspectors for easy customisation for the designers.
BEAT STREET
Group Project
Beat Street is a VR, first-person, rhythm game where you drive a car using drums to get to the end of a highway while playing to the beat of a song.
Beat Street is a VR game made in Unity, built in 4 weeks with a group of 13 people. I was in charge of the simpler systems such as VR object interaction, pause and main menu implementation, movement, and haptics and player feedback implementation.
UNREAL EXPERIENCE
Personal Project
In this little Unreal Demo, you play as a mage shooting magic projectiles at enemies controlled by a simple AI made with Unreal's AI Behaviour Trees and Blackboards.
After finishing University and spending so much time in Unity, I decided to explore how game development was different in Unreal Engine. I found an online course by Tom Looman, going through all the basics needed to make a complete game in Unreal using C++. The course taught me basic principles like collision and physics, all the way to advanced tools using Unreal Engine's built in AI behaviour trees, and how to replicate for multiplayer programming.
PATHFINDING APPLICATION
Personal Project
A pathfinding app that I made in 2021, which finds the shortest path on a grid-based map. It uses multiple pathfinding algorithms such as Breadth First Search, Dijkstra and A star. This app was written with C++ in SDL2.
BOIDS
Assignment Task
A BOID simulator using C++ with SDL2. Uses steering behaviours such as Seek, Wander and Flee and A star as it's pathfinding algorithm. The fish use a finite state machine, deciding which behavior to enact.
UNITY CUTSCENE EDITOR TOOL
Assignment Task
This is a tool I created for Unity to create smooth, cinematic cutscenes efficiently. It uses a 3D spline editor, that can be moved and changed in the scene view, which will be used as a track for the camera. It also comes with a separate window where you can edit these cutscenes on a timeline.
CUSTOM PHYSICS ENGINE
Assignment Task
A custom 2D physics engine, created with C++ and AIE Bootstrap (AIE's software development library). Uses Math equations for velocity, momentum and impulse magnitude. It also includes springs and soft-bodies.
PROGRAMMING ADVENTURES
CONWAY'S GAME OF LIFE
Day Project
As a day project to get back into programming after a small hiatus, I decided to create "Conway's Game of Life" in Unity. Click here to see how I made it.
PROCEDURAL ANIMATIONS
Week Project
After seeing some thing online about Inverse Kinematics and how they are used to create procedural animations, I decided to give it a go myself in Unity. Click here to check out how I made these spider like creatures.
PROCEDURAL GUN ANIMATIONS
Day Project
While on the topic of procedural animations with Inverse Kinematics, I had another go at another type of procedural animation for gun recoil. Click here to check out how I made it.
MARCHING CUBES AND COMPUTE SHADERS
Month Project
After seeing what you can do with compute shaders in Unity, I gave it a go myself by following online tutorials. I also implemented the Marching Cubes algorithm and transfered all the calculations into a compute shader. Click here to see how I did it.