Michael Clavell

Portfolio & Resume

Personal Projects

Snake on the Water (in-progress)

Snake on the Water is an in-progress recreation of the classic snake game with a twist and unique graphical effects. Play as your local friendly rescue tugboat and save the innocent swimmers from the dangerous waters. Make sure to drop them off at the dock! The game features a custom engine created in DirectX which includes water, particles, and animations.

Since Snake on the Water and its engine are a WIP title, you can view the github for the most up to date changes. So far I have:

Created the base engine the team is working off of and expanding. This engine supported meshes, textures, shaders, 3 types of lights, a inheritable transform system, inheritable camera system, a renderer, and an input manager.

View our team's current progress its GitHub page.

Knight Move 3D

Knight Move 3D is a recreation of the Famicom/NES game Knight Move. Move around a chess board collecting hearts, just be sure to not fall through! The game is created using Simplex, a C++ based engine made by a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

My list of tasks included:

Created the underlying system that controls the game board. This allowed access to each node for easy placement for all entities.
Created systems for game management, pickup placement/collection, entity collision, score calculation, and UI.
Programmed various polish effects: heart traversal, tile falling/regenerating, tile color changes, etc.

View the source code.

VRn't (Ludum Dare 41)

WARNING! INCOMPATIBLE GENRES: VR and Your Living Room.
Welcome to the virtual world of VRn’t, where the lines between the real and the fantastic are blurred, if only slightly. You control a humble gamer with a heart of gold and an expensive VR rig. Help him defeat ninjas in the digital dojo, and PLEASE mind the furniture.

Ranked #17 in Humor out of 2000+ entries, this game was created for Ludum Dare 41's theme of "combine 2 incompatible genres", this 2D brawler has you split your attention between two realities. Defend yourself from endless waves of bloodthirsty ninjas while also trying to keep your living room intact (or not!).

This was a team project where I:

Was the main programmer. In under 48 hours I programmed player controls, enemy AI, obstacles, and other gameplay elements.
Composed two music tracks and created all sound effects in the game.
Managed the team and dividing tasks between us.

Play in browser on Itch.io.
View the Ludum Dare page.

Sugarplum Summit (Ludum Dare 40)

Fly to the top of the Christmas Tree in Sugarplum Summit! This Christmas themed SHMUP was created for Ludum Dare 40's theme of "The more you have, the worse it is". Free Christmas angels from their ornamental cages. They will help you make haste of your mission, but be wary of their allegiances.

The team for Sugarplum Summit consisted of three people. My role was team lead and sole programmer. The game was submitted for the "Jam" so we had 72 hours to create it. I also spent an additional 15 hours updating the game to a PostJam version. My responsibilities included:

Coded all aspects of the game, from the player moving to the scripted boss fight at the summit.
Designed three main enemies, a boss, and generally balanced the game.
Created milestones for my team mates and I to stay on track and effectively budget our time.
Recorded some sound effects for actions in the game.

Play in browser on Itch.io.
View the Ludum Dare page.
The full project and documentation is available on GitHub.

RPG Shopper (In progress)

RPG Shopper aims to help GameMasters of any tabletop RPG with the management of shops and major items and upgrades. With this tool, GMs will be able to create and customize their own in game shops with various types of modules. Some examples include single purchase items, upgradeable tiers, and progression trees.

The app is currently in development using Unity3D. The engine's framework and canvas system streamlines the dev process, and the modular script based system fits well with the design of customizable shops. I have completed a prototpye that I am currently playtesting in a D&D campaign.

DIE-PARTISAN

DIE-PARTISAN is a 2D twin stick shooter created by myself and three other RIT students in the Monogame engine. The game focuses on Lucifer as he fights his way through infinite, randomly stitched together levels, battling mysterious rogue angels bent on the destruction of Heaven and Hell.

The development of DIE-PARTISAN was over the course of four months in early 2017. During this time I acted as project leader and oversaw timelines and schedules while developing with the rest of the team. Other than leader, my major responsibilities included:

Programmed player movement, controls, and actions.
Developed a method for tile textures to be procedurally bitmapped onto the map. This allowed us to paint maps with our development tool and have the game place the textures.
Created the AI for turret enemies.
Used multithreading to create optimizations in various aspects of the game.
Basic menu, game state, and class management

Game available on Itch.io.
The full project and documentation is available on GitHub.

School Projects

Just Visuals and Beats

Just Visuals and Beats is an audio visualizer in style of Just Shapes and Beats. It features unique effects for each of the three songs as well as many customizable controls to play with.

The visualizer was created in Javascript using the Canvas element. It also features custom CSS.

Experience in Chrome or Firefox.

Just Shapes and Leaps

Just Shapes and Leaps is an endless 2D runner created entirely using the DOM. Press any key to jump as the terrain gets harder and harder to navigate. How far can you go?

This game was created entirely using base Javascript and the Document Object Model for one of my classes. I programmed and created the art for the game myself using the visual style from Just Shapes and Beats.

Play in browser.

Polygons

Polygons is a reimagining of the classic arcade game, Asteroids. Players must maneuver, dash, and shoot their way through an endless amount of dangerous geometry. Do you have what it takes to survive the perils of the second dimension?

While this assignment was created using Unity3D, I was tasked to create an asteroids clone by not using some built-in Unity3D functions. Instead, I had to create my own vector and physics based movement as well as my own collision detection. I added some animations and effects to create a more engaging experience.

Play in browser on itch.io.

Humans vs. Zombies

A rumored asteroid landing in the swamps outside a southern city has caused the military to panic, sending out troops to recover the potentially dangerous object. Little did they know that the asteroid carries an alien virus that turns humans into brain hungry monsters. It is a fight for survival in this exciting simulation of Humans vs. Zombies!

Using Unity3D, I was tasked to create a Humans vs. Zombies simulation using Craig Reynold's steering behaviors as a basis. The agents have their own behaviors: zombies will pursue the closest human, while humans will evade zombies that are chasing them. Humans also have the ability to fight back if they are together in groups of three. The result is an interesting simulation where the outcome can change any second.