Smash Squad

Smash Squad is a 3D, 2 person local multi-player game, inspired by the classic playground game King-of-the-Hill. This game was developed as part of a BSc Games Programming assignment at the University of Northampton for the Xbox Series S using Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform (UWP) and Unity 6000.

The game features a single, expansive 'Candy-land' themed level. This level is comprised of a series of smaller islands (in this case made from sweets), and the players must parkour around to reach each other, and avoid the large holes which will cause the player to fall and loose the match. The game features 4 different playable characters, each with their own unique abilities:

1. Ninja: This character can turn invisible for a period of time to the other player.
2. Warp: This character can throw a projectile, and teleport to whatever it hits.
3. Geomancer: This character can manipulate the environment, summoning platforms below them that can be used to traverse the level, or be launched - hitting other characters with powerful knock back.
4. Launch: This character can summon a large explosion at their feet, knocking the character into the air, and dealing massive knock back to other characters near-by.

Both players also feature a melee attack which can knock players back at close range, and a ranged attack to do the same from a distance, with a little skill.

The aim of the game is to knock the other player off the level, and be the last player standing. Both players are otherwise immortal to any damage. After 5 minutes of play, meteorites will begin to fall from the sky, which can knock players off the level, adding an extra level of challenge.

This game was designed and programmed by Thomas Jebson exclusively, using the following third-party assets:

Models

Player Models

• Ninja Player Model
• Warp Player Model
• Geomancer Player Model
• Launch Player Model

Supporting Models

• Arrow Model
• Clouds Model

Candyland Level Models

• Ice Cream
• Candy Assortment
• Doughnuts
• Cookies

Particles

• Fire Particles
• Trail Particles

Textures

• Fireball Texture
• Moon Texture
• UI Textures
• Pause Button Texture
• Play Button Texture
• Loading Icons
• Xbox Button Icons Provided by Finlay Thomson

Fonts

• Batman Forever Alternate Font

Sound Effects

• Explosion SFX
• Footstep SFX
• Arrow Fire SFX
• Power Up SFX
• Warp SFX
• Arrow Hit SFX

Music

• Arrow Hit SFX
• Arrow Hit SFX
• Arrow Hit SFX
• Arrow Hit SFX

The game 'Smash Squad' can be seen almost as an 3D focused extension to the exploration into 2D games optimisation seen in the game 1942. This is because the targeted platform for this game was the Xbox Series S, with games built for the Universal Windows Platform (UWP). Given this platform's budget-focused hardware choices, particular attention was put on insuring the game ran smoothly. Given the performance focus needed for this game, it's development explored a variety of different optimisation tools:

• Unity Addressables: This asset management system enables the asynchronous loading of game assets, which was used to ensure the game remained responsive and operational whilst loading game assets.
• Blender: This game required the creation of some very unique game levels. The built in terrain system was not suitable for this, and loading each of the individual game assets in was very inefficient. To fix this, all the game maps were designed in Blender (using 3rd party models) and exported as a single model.
• Temporal Delayed Updating: This is a technique used to delay the updating of some game objects during runtime based on their importance. This technique was used to spread the load of updating less-important assets across multiple frames, instead of slowing down the main game loop.

Further to the performance focus of this game, it also marks the beginning of my journey into exploring multi-player games . This game features side-by-side local multi-player, which was implemented a full year before any formal introduction into multi-player systems programming on the same BSc Games Programming course. Whilst my implementation is not the 'intended' way to implement this mechanic, and there are some areas like in the menus, where my approach seems inflexible - the mechanic worked perfectly in game. Of course however, this was a hugely computationally expensive thing to do and contributed in-part to my need for further exploration into games optimisation.

Overall, I feel like this game was a very successful demonstration of me showing off the skills I have as a 2nd year BSc Games Programming student, and shows a clear interest in exploring more advanced concepts beyond the scope of the module and course to create the desired effect. On the flip side, whilst technically complex, the game is missing some important in-game polish; like for example animations. There is also the option for a second (arguably more complex to design) game level, which isn't present in the game in it's current form. There is clearly an argument to be made in exploring introducing these missing features - although there is no plan to do so at this time.