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Gary Gould

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Reap And Sow

Top 10 placement out of 1,000

In the 2023 GameDev.tv Game-Jam, our team scored 9th place in the “fun” category and 7th place overall. Our team consisted of a musician, an SFX artist, and myself. We completed the jam in 5 days.

Our ratings and feedback:
( https://itch.io/jam/gamedevtv-jam-2023/rate/2093023 ) )

The tight constraints of a jam environment make for a good way to show a stripped-down version of my approaches to dev and problem solving.

This theme inspired me to develop two interconnected games set in the same space. The player’s actions in one game would effect their success in the other. My plan was that this dynamic would provide a clear and convincing motivation for progression.

I thought contrast would be interesting, so I went with two extremes: a hectic twin-stick shooter, and a peaceful farming sim.

In one dimension you’d kill monsters to collect seeds, while in the other you’d plant crops that transformed into objects like turrets, defensive cover, or power-ups. This was my first time making a game in either genre, but it felt like an achievable goal.

The theme of this jam was “Life in 2 dimensions”

Dimension swapping

Improvising

At the last minute, we lost our artist. Such is the chaotic nature of a game jam.

Suddenly finding myself having to handle all the art, code, and design, I decided to channel the dark art of AI generation. While the results were initially unsatisfactory, some editing in photoshop gave them visual cohesion and soul.

In the end the blend of “sentient plants” meets “doom” felt like a good theme to match the energy of the two genres of gameplay.

AI gen before and after touchup

Tower Defense Strategy

Economy:

Early on I noticed that players tended to spend their seeds on power-ups like damage or speed, and would ignore the more interesting tower-defense plants.

My solution was to create a rare secondary currency called “fertilizer” which had a dual purpose: to make the player think more carefully when spending their resources, and to encourage the use of strategic plants that only required seeds.

To make progression clear to the player, fertilizer would only drop from a special enemy that would spawn after a displayed kill milestone had been reached.

Gameplay Loop:

At first, the player was allowed to switch between dimensions at will. However, players would become engrossed in combat and forget to swap back to the peaceful farm dimension.

My solution was to allow the player to stay in the farm dimension as long as they wanted, but have their time in the action dimension be dictated by a timer. This had the added benefit of creating an extra layer of strategy: a player might take calculated risks based on how much time was left before the forced dimension shift.

While it may have been tempting to follow players’ natural instincts to keep fighting indefinitely, it was clear from testing that the forced shifts led to a more interesting and replayable experience.

For Example:

An enemy worth mentioning is the “Parsnip Phalanx”, who was created to solve a particular problem: as the game progressed, players were often tempted to try a “turtle” strategy, in which they would surround themselves with defensive plants. I didn’t want to eliminate that strategy—players enjoyed discovering it and it was a reward for experimentation—but once they found it, it took the challenge out of the game.

To counter, I introduced the Parsnip, which held a shield that would reflect projectiles. The only way to kill it was to maneuver behind its shield. As the game progressed, the frequency of Parsnips would increase, forcing the player to adapt to a more mobile strategy.

“Parsnip Phalanx” enemy

Staying alive until the timer swaps dimensions

Difficulty:

Players have less patience for jam-made games, so too steep or too shallow of a difficulty curve is enough to end a playthrough early and land you with a negative review.

It’s important to create a brief and entertaining tutorial, as well as have a ramping difficulty with obvious indicators of your progress. To this end I made sure to introduce new enemies as the game went on, as well as teasing some higher-cost plants.

Playtesting and design

End Product

While it has the very rough edges of a jam game, I’m happy with how this turned out.

If you’d like to see how the game was recieved check out the comments on this page:
( https://itch.io/jam/gamedevtv-jam-2023/rate/2093023 ) )

Original trailer for the jam

Circuit Breaker

I invested significant time in this large project, but ultimately felt I had to abandon it because of its scope as well as engine limitations, which would have required a substantial overhaul.

Project Overview

Premise

Amidst a labyrinthine expanse of steel and machinery sprawls a massive chasm known simply as “The Pit”. The Pit stretches far enough that one can barely make out the neon signage of the recreational district glowing dimly through the smog on the other side. Here on the manufacturing side, a metal body is callously tossed over along with some scrap. The lifeless robot plummets through seemingly endless layers of metal structures and swirling smoke before finally splashing into a lake of black tar.

Someone must have fished it out, as now the same body lies propped up against a wall, tar still oozing out of its joints. The robot’s head twitches slightly before its single lens that serves as an eye flickers to life, casting a soft, green glow onto the concrete rubble on the ground beside it. The eye blinks, then swivels in surprise at the sight of a thick cable protruding from a newly open cavity in its chest. The robot tentatively runs its eye up the length of the cable, and sees that the other end is plugged into a glowing reactor resting similarly inside the chest of a bulky robot. Joints creak as the larger robot cocks its head and waves down at its newfound companion.

In these tar-filled dregs at the bottom of the Slag Heap, our discarded protagonist must band together with other unfortunate rejects to build their way out of this dismal place. With an augmented arm and knowledge of construction machinery, our hero must fight not only hostile automatons but also the powers that be, who would rather keep their robot brethren condemned to their current status as junk.

Tossing and swinging are the same mechanic

Vision statement

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it takes to properly motivate players. Since it’s a recognizable example, take Minecraft: building with blocks wasn’t groundbreaking gameplay, yet this game captivated the world. In Minecraft, players are led to constantly think about the purpose of their moment-to-moment actions: How will adventuring improve my home? How will mining improve my adventuring? How will my improving my home improve my experience? etc.

These tasks:

1) have obvious in-game benefits

2) affect your ability to do other tasks, and

3) feel continuous, not relegated to separate game-states.

By contrast, other motivators like cosmetics or achievements don’t feed back into the experience of the game in a meaningful way. To be fully engaged, you need to have a compelling story in your mind as to why you are playing. The more mental steps needed to define your motivation, the more you’ll be taken out of the game.

This led me to design a game where the base goal is to gather the parts for, then to build, and, finally, to defend a giant tower. As you build the tower higher, you’ll be able to reach new side-areas, in which you’ll need to physically retrieve parts, materials, and tools, then haul them back to your tower through puzzle solving or platforming. Building higher unlocks more levels, and completing levels allows you to build higher.

Taking this philosophy of continuity further, the building mechanics and the traversal mechanics are ostensibly the same: you can swing from objects at the same time as your move them, meaning lighter objects will moved easily while barely swinging you, while the reverse is true for heavy objects. In a similar vein, all interactable UI elements are physical objects in the game that multiple players could interact with at once.

key moments of an open-ended building-puzzle.

Two players are presented with an initial task of moving heavy equipment up a cliff. To accomplish this, they first must use a fabricator to build a few machines that, when linked can lift heavy objects:

2. Now the players must move their equipment across a gap. To accomplish this they must print a bridge using a 3D printer, then fill their inventory with connector pieces that will lock the bridge in place, and deploy floating drones that hold up bridge-parts while they work on it:

3. To finish the level, the players must lift up a heavy generator in order power nearby machines

4. Last, here’s an example of how combat works in this game. The players may encounter this enemy at the end of this level:

About And Skills

Contact:
GaryDonGould@gmail.com

Notable Skills

“Hard” skills
-Well-versed in Unity and Unreal

-C# (advanced), Java (rusty)

-Visual scripting (expert)

-Multiplayer Networking

-Version Control (GitHub)

-Visual scripting and rapid prototyping

-Utilizing AI effectively

-Photoshop and Blender familiarity

-Shader, particle system, and animation system familiarity

-Mobile and web experience

-Optimization

Design skills

-Creative Writing

-Balancing

-Mechanics and “Gamefeel”

-Designing AI

-Game systems and meta-design

-Player Psychology

-Puzzle Design

-Level Design

With a bachelor's degree in Philosophy and a minor in Psychology, my passion for reasoning out complex issues has been a constant driving force. Game development allows me to apply my problem-solving skills and creativity in fun and exciting ways. To subsidize my journey of learning programming, I’ve also worked as a bartender and bar manager, honing exceptional people and teamwork skills.

I understand that my path to becoming a developer might be considered non-traditional, but I believe this unusual journey has equipped me with a diverse set of skills and perspectives that would be invaluable for your team. I’d love the opportunity to demonstrate how I might contribute.