ZFO Minigame Collection
To fulfill a promise to our customers who had invested in characters as NFTs, our team faced a critical deadline to deliver engaging, playable experiences where they could utilize these characters. In a situation where delays and shifting priorities led to unfulfilled projects, my fellow technical artist and I took the initiative to create playable web-based games. Without a dedicated development team, we rapidly developed three fully functional web games that allowed our users to play as any of the 26 characters, integrating smoothly with backend systems and achieving what had previously been thought impractical in a short timeframe.
Through collaborative problem-solving and intensive iteration, we released three unique, fully playable experiences within about a month.
Zoom.F.O - Vehicle Racing
Overview:
Players race through a cosmic terrain in this vehicle-based game, using NFT characters as drivers. AI players and dynamic obstacles keep each race dynamic and unpredictable.
Players owning any of 26 'ZooFO' characters (Cryptoys premiere IP) can play this game on web using their selected 'unboxed' character.
My Contributions:
- Developed all vehicle mechanics, game logic, racing spline systems, AI systems, and character rigging within the game.
- Rigged each character in-engine to seamlessly drive vehicles, allowing for varied character playability.
- Built UI elements, audio design, environment setup, play loop, and integrated full web support, delivering a polished experience.
Key Accomplishments:
I am by far most proud of the car mechanics developed to bring this game to fruition, utilizing real-world-engine and wheel simulation, friction, transmission, downforce, and more playing into the feel of the cars in-game.
Racing spline development was a rewarding mechanic to develop, unlocking the ability for AI to follow the track, laps to be counted correctly, and any track to be developed and used.
We ultimately decided on a simple loop track for the initial release, being the most easily playable of the games, hitting our young target audience.
Void Voyager
Overview:Set in 'The Void' a retro space-themed environment, players navigate over floating objects and collect waffles to earn points and return safely to the town center before the being swallowed by the encroaching wormhole.
Players similarly can play with any of 26 owned and unboxed 'ZooFO' characters.
My Contributions:
- Engineered the entire third-person character controller and physics-based interactions to create immersive movement and gameplay.
- Worked with the animation team to develop the character animation controller - key in this experience and all 3rd person games.
- Handled Unity WebGL backend integration for a smooth player experience.
Key Accomplishments:
The character controller for this (and other) third person experiences was a major accomplishment which came to fruition over multiple years and involved my thorough recommendations and documentation given to the rigging and animation teams.
This controller not only works for the 26 characters available in these games, but applies to all characters released by OnChain Studios, including licenced characters by Disney and Mattel.
The Block Experience
Overview:
The block is the premiere bottom-line experience we were tasked with completing, offering for players to simply 'take a walk on the block' and features 3rd person play mechanics on a fixed camera, showcasing work done by the animation team and environment by 3D generalists.
My Contributions:
- Utilizes the same 3rd-person movement mechanics and animation controller I developed - as previously featured in Void Voyager, adapted to a fixed camera.
- Features a high-fidelity scene, optimized for web by introducing baked lighting, polygon reduction and introduction of colliders.
Key Accomplishments:
Scene optimization - The environment for this experience was purposed previously for pre-rendered sequences, which had to be optimized, reduced, and collisions and interaction added for a more cohesive experience.
Test of viability - This experience was created first as a test of web integration, a proof of concept for testing all characters' look and initial mechanics on webGL, as well as verification of back-end character selection processes.