HyperHam Delivery Company
Technical Designer
June 2019 - December 2020 (6.5 months) | Solo | Unreal Engine 4
(I worked on this during two separate semesters, hence the long timespan.)
Welcome to your first day at HyperHam Delivery Company! Slide down hills to deliver carrots to hungry hamsters in style! Complete deliveries and do cool dance moves for tips, and use the money to upgrade your ball and pay your rent.
I finished an early version of HyperHam at the end of my sophomore year, then worked on it again in my senior year.
I finished an early version of HyperHam at the end of my sophomore year, then worked on it again in my senior year.
- Repurposed UE4's rolling ball character, adding a downward speed control to give players an increased sense of momentum and weight.
- Implemented a rhythm game that generates notes based on a beats-per-minute value entered for each song.
- Used Blueprints to make interconnected delivery centers, delivery destinations, and upgrades. Tiered delivery rewards are calculated by distance, giving the player total freedom in where they go to pick up deliveries with randomized routes.
- Tuned upgrades and made them appear on the character to give the player a short, satisfying progression loop that makes the early game and end games both enjoyable but still distinct.
- Created contextual, legible UI using widgets and animations based on the player's current state. This only shows them what they need to see and clears screen real-estate when possible.
- Built a small open world using UE4's terrain and foliage tools with a few distinct islands that balance tailored routes with a sense of freedom for exploration.
Production Plan
Created in the first semester I worked on Hyperham, this outlines my design goals for the project, how I planned to achieve them, and what assets I required to create the final product. It also includes some basic UI mockups, and a list of risks and mitigations.
Post Mortem
Written at the end of the second semester of work, this post-mortem describes what I did well, what I did poorly, and how I could have avoided or fixed those issues. In short:
- The added interaction of rhythm and improved feedback for ball upgrades greatly improved the user experience.
- Using three connected islands made paths much clearer and improved flow.
- Making devlog videos helped me focus.
- I should've planned on using more time to fix my old code.
- More landmarks and terrain types would've improved players' route and survey knowledge.
- Testing over video would've given me clearer feedback.