Shred Mountain: White Out

Role: Lead Designer
Genre: Roguelike / Sports / Arcade
Development Time: 4 Months
Team Size: 6
Engine: Unity

In Shred Mountain: White Out, players shred down a neon mountain of garbage and collect enough trash to spend in the shop to unlock more sections of the mountain, or unlock movement abilities to reach new, hidden areas with extra trash to collect! Reach the bottom of the slope over multiple runs and multiple white-outs until you master the movement.

Voted "Most Fun" by a panel of MSU game design alumni, professors, and class members at end of the year game development showcase.

Responsibilities:

  • Designed concept, gameplay loop, entire mountain slope, functional shop and upgrade scene, and did all primary asset implementation

  • Created and implemented VFX, post processing, menus, and UI

  • Collaborated with programmers, artists, and sound designer to establish strong aesthetic for the game

  • Implemented progression system of opening new gates after currency collection

SYSTEMS and UI

Shred Mountain acts as a roguelike, encouraging players to shred until they crash, collecting as much trash on the way as possible. I created a scene where the player can use the trash they collected to unlock new routes, or to buy access to new movement mechanics like the dash and double jump. I created UI that was themed to the aesthetic of the game, while also adding to the scene floating billboards and helicopters and drones that I scripted to bob in the air. I wanted this scene to be a pitstop at the top of the mountain, a place for the player to rest before getting back into the action.

LEVEL DESIGN

Shred Mountain has a singular mountain map that is divided by 3 sections: the Green Circle, Blue Square, and Black Diamond routes. I designed each section to play differently and encourage the player to do different things, like the Green Circle zone encouraging long striding horizontal movements, while the Blue Square and Black Diamond zones have more verticality and parkour aspects, encouraging the player to have access to the double jump for full range of motion. Each zone is sectioned off by large colored gates, and those gates are opened after the player unlocks them in the shop. Utilizing mountain, tree, ramp, helicopter, and storage container assets from the artists on the team, I created a unique zone in each area that both looks and plays differently from the other zones in the game, and added scripts to some of the art assets like the drones and helicopters to make the mountain feel more alive.

VISUAL STYLE

Shred Mountain wants the player to feel cool the entire time they are gliding down the mountain, and the aesthetics of the game had to reflect this to engage players. I stylized the world of Shred Mountain to give a neon hue to all objects in the game, and to fuse a futuristic robotic world with the natural landscape of the mountain. To achieve this effect further in-game, I added things like speed lines and a floating drone companion to display the players score in game, while also stylizing the controls menu and creating informational graphics in Photoshop and implementing them on floating billboards swaying from drones.