Nomad Project

An action, adventure game where the player would blast through the desert with an ancient device to save a dying race.

Platform: PC/Console

Final Build Release: 4/30/2019

Role: Designer

Glass Cannon Games: Charles Grabber, David Carlos, Devon Roberge, David Carey, Genevieve Guimond, Jae Ettinger, Rose Gruner, Zoe Hammonds, Richard Bourdaleis, Thomas Mann

Intent

To create an experience that makes the player feel like a small part of a grand world. The size of the creatures and environment the player takes a part of creates an epic sense of scale.

General Description

Through a third person perspective, the player controls the Nomad, an ancient wanderer that seeks to help and heal an ancient race of massive creatures. He moves himself through the vast desert with an ancient blast cannon and a homemade glider. The player needs to blast off the harmful crystals growing from the beasts’ backs to rejuvenate them. The Nomad goes through the game saving the creatures until he reaches the heart of the valley.

Personal Contribution

As a lead, I was in charge of the rocket jumping and glider movement. I worked on VFX as well as general tuning to make the movement feel better and work more efficiently for our vision.

Team Collaboration

The group was pretty strong but I admittedly fell behind more than I would have liked to. I tried my best to keep up with where we were headed but I regret not working harder then. Since then, I’ve used those months as a reminder that my hard work and full attention is what I must put forth.

Blast Jumping

The original idea for the game was to play as a character with a gunlance (a type of weapon that is a lance with a barrel that can be fired) who can launch themselves into the air and also use it as a weapon. This was carried from an old project that I made that didn’t make it past the concepting phase. We started with an idea that you would take precious materials off of the backs of beasts but we decided that we wanted to make it more environment friendly. Now, the Nomad uses an ancient device that doesn’t hurt the beasts and instead shoots off harmful crystals.

We started with the idea of rocket jumping like you’d see in Quake or Team Fortress 2 but since we were working in third person, it didn’t translate well. We also determined that the action of rocket jumping was too much for most players to handle and didn’t work well with controllers either. We decided to make it more like a “blast jump”, where the player would launch themselves through the air and leave a destructive blast below them. While this seemed like the best control scheme, it was still a little awkward with the way the Nomad would contextually have to aim the device (effectively shoving the thing between their legs).

With VFX and other changes to make the device feel better to shoot (screenshake, booming audio effects), we determined that moving through the air was still challenging. We decided to implement a glider that massively improved air maneuverability. With these two systems of movement, the player could now traverse the game environment with ease and pleasure.