Mind the Trap

Play “Mind the Traps” Now!

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We’re happy to announce that our game jam submission, Mind the Traps, is now available to play for free! Download the game here.

Mind the Traps is a multiplayer dungeon crawler, but unlike games of this sort it’s a light-hearted and chaotic party game. Use your friends as a tool to clear the path so that you can get ahead. Oh, and by the way, there can only be one winner…

Since we received a lot of positive feedback so far, we’re committing to finishing this game and would really appreciate your thoughts. Any criticism you guys have will make this game better and better.

The current version is a prototype that came out of the Epic MegaJam last week. It is designed for two to four players in local multiplayer on a PC using gamepad controllers. This game is playable single player, but is highly discouraged.

Have fun!

Games
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We’re on our way home from Davis! We got ourselves a nice hot cup of Cocomo (dazzling chocolate, coconut infusion) from Dutch Bros Coffee. Yea, say that once without saliva coming out of your mouth.

dutchbros

Aside from the terrible, waking-up-ever-hour sleep with plastic bedsheets at Motel 6 and the mentally draining Epic MegaJam that literally just finished the day before yesterday, the game jam was a lot of fun. It was hosted by the UC Davis Gamedev & Arts Club as a fun ice-breaker event for all the new members to start learning how to use Unity and work in groups. The more experienced members, including ourselves, spent the day mixing between making our own game, answering questions and mentoring the students. You can imagine the excitement on their faces when they won more than half of the award categories! They had ridiculously creative concepts.

Mind the Trap

Submitted Our Game, Mind the Traps, for the Epic MegaJam

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Pulled 3 almost all-nighters with some friends to submit a game for the #ue4jam (Epic Game Jam)! Stay tuned for more footage of our game, Mind the Traps!

Theme of the Jam:

“Standing on the shoulders of giants”

Gameplay:

Use your friends as a tool for you to discover the path ahead of you! While they sacrifice their lives, you gain the knowledge and pathway to the future. This game must be played with 2-4 X-Box controllers as multiplayer. Single player is possible but not recommended.

Did you make all your own assets?

Yes!  We made everything in the game.

The Team:

Michael Lee, Christopher Ng, Kenneth Ng, Conrad Fay, Jordan Henderson

Wispy Willows

New Level Complete

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Woo!!!!!!! Just finished up the design for a new level of #WispyWillowsGame. This one caused me some especial pain. Lots and lots of unseen bugs came up during testing. I’m quite happy with the layout. All art are placeholders at the moment.

Level15

Wispy Willows

Fishes, Water and Rain

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Woohoo FISHIES! And RAIN!! MOVING WATER!!

Fishies

These are kept simple because they’re so small. The models were made in Blender and have no animation. The movement is done in Unity by script using “Random.insideUnitSphere”. Each fish uses this function to swim around random points in a sphere of a pre-determined size.

I may add waggling tails at some point… You can’t have fishies without waggling tails…

Rain

This is done via a really neat tutorial that teaches you how to take advantage of 2 particle systems working together—one to create the rain itself, and one to simulate the “splashes.” I highly recommend it for a nice raining-and-splashing effect.

Water

This is actually the same gradient color shader that is used on all objects in the game scene. The only difference is that this one allows for transparency. The “waves” or “white caps” were drawn in GIMP on a png texture, which was then added to this transparent, gradient color shader.

We would love to hear your thoughts!

Here’s a bonus screenshot in case anybody wants to use it as phone wallpaper:

Wispy Willows

Ambience and Scenery Concept

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We really like Monument Valley’s philosophy of making your game poster or wallpaper-ready, so this piece utilizes Vignette (dark, blurred corners) to focus the viewer’s attention on the center. All objects are arranged in a circle and the background is relatively dark—there is nothing out in the distance to distract the viewer.

This scene actually uses no lighting. All objects use a shader that provides color depending on which direction the object’s surfaces face. In addition to that, the shader overlays a gradient based on the height of the object.

The floor is a splatter of different paint brushes done in GIMP. I lightened up the center of the splatter to give the illusion of light shining on it.

Here’s a screenshot in case you want to use it as phone wallpaper. Enjoy!

Ambience and Scenery Test 2

Wispy Willows

Testing Color Combinations on a Low Poly Setting

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Testing Different Color CombinationsSince this game focuses a lot on aesthetics, we used https://coolors.co/ to come up with some nice color combinations that would give the eerie yet mystical vibe we’re trying to go for. All the models were made in Blender, while the shading and particle effects were done in Unity. Every single object, including the background, uses a gradient shader with directional coloring.

We love to hear your feedback. Any criticism would be greatly appreciated!