I lead the design and implementation efforts of Virballs. My primary focuses on the project were on gameplay, this included the character movement as well as camera system, the combat systems and the AI.

The character movement systems leveraged Unreal’s character movement component, with overridden handling for physics interactions and tweaking around the feel of this game. Along with custom made controllers for a custom vehicle controller. As well as a hand made camera controller and animation system, which include controls that were finely tuned to give the character a tight platformer feel.

The combat system focuses around a robust projectile system that allows for customized movement, visuals, damage interaction, physics interactions, and specialized status applications. This empowered us to create 42 unique weapons for the player rather quickly as well as custom weapons for each of the enemy AI’s. Each weapon was designed and implemented to feel impactful as well as balanced and give the player an exciting feeling as they progress through the game.

Lastly the AI includes 10 unique bosses, all with their own combat phases that feel engaging and fun to fight while also feeling cohesive to the game. As well as numerous enemy AI that leveraged sharable logic as well as custom tailored logic to give a large amount of varying enemies.

Virballs is the most polished game I have had the opportunity to work on and I am so excited for its full release. I learned so much not only growing my development skills but also my leadership and communication skills. There are things I wish I could flesh out or add to the game but as always deadlines come and you have to save the endless ideas for the sequel. The game is in early access on steam and full release is planned currently for March 18 2025.