Zach Strong Portfolio
Paradise Engine
These are a few of the games I worked on as a gameplay programmer in a group called Paradise Engine during my second and third years at Media Design School. Paradise Engine was comprised of 6 members, including 3 programmers (including myself) and 3 artists. All our games were made using Unreal Engine 5.
Crunch Out
Imagine a game like this: you're a toy in their owner's bedroom (like Toy Story!). Your owner's mum told them to clean up but they'd prefer for you to do it for them. The living pieces of paper around the room do not take kindly to being cleaned up. You must chase, grab and shoot them into baskets, out windows, or into open flames to dispose of them, making use of your super stretchy arms. Put enough of them away for the flying key to come out of hiding, and then catch that to escape the room. Be careful you don't accidentally bring a trash can to life - you might get into an epic boss fight!
For this game my primary responsibilites included programming...
- The paper enemies, using Unreal Engine 5 AI systems such as the Environment Query System (EQS)
- the flying key enemy and the door mechanics
- the minimap UI with all enemy locations shown relative to player location and direction
- the dash speed-lines post-process shader effect
- the arms wobbling and swaying towards where the player is aiming
Links:
Rapid Prototype (25 hours within a 7 day period)
- Task Log
Mini-Production (47 hours within a 3 week period)
- Development Journal
- Task Log
Best of Three
A Super Smash Bros inspired Platformer Fighter game including 3 characters with unique move sets, 3 stages with unique hazards, and 3 lives each to take from your friends to earn your victory!
Responsibility details, video, download and docs coming to portfolio soon!
Vivisection
A small scale horror game where the player must multitask between driving their car to avoid the dangers outside, and operating on a monster in the passenger seat to prevent him from waking up!
Responsibility details, video, download and docs coming to portfolio soon!
More Paradise Engine projects coming to portfolio soon..
Working on something bigger and better than anything before right now!
More existing work to be documented too
Solo Projects
These are a few of the projects I programmed by myself. They are primarily written in C++.
Water Shader
A general use water shader handcrafted in Unreal Engine 5. Features include Gerstner waves, underwater caustics, edge foam, splashes, and ripples. Highly customizable for different uses with a vast set of exposed parameters.
Feature breakdown, download and docs coming to portfolio soon!
Boid Simulation
A technical demonstration of AI locomotion behaviors including Seeking, Fleeing, Wandering, Arriving, Pursuing, and Evading. Many debug displays show off how they work and helped me program them. Rendered using SFML.
Feature breakdown, download and docs coming to portfolio soon!
More solo projects coming to portfolio soon!
So much existing work yet to be documented
ZACH STRONG
zachary.j.strong@gmail.com