2024
1
STATIC CUT
/ overview
Static Cut is a solo project I was working on in early 2024. The player speedily and stylishly wields a pistol and a samurai sword, slashing and shooting through rooms of enemies. The full game was going to be rogue-like, with players completing a number of runs and upgrading their weapons as they go, journeying through numerous distinct environments and facing off against a few bosses, but ultimately that aspect was sidelined in favour of more speedrun focused, level based gameplay.
/ work
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systems design
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programming
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asset creation
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UI and UX
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graphic design
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procedural level generation
/ outcomes
Working on Static Cut came with a lot of opportunities for gaining new insight and knowledge and it is a project I hope to continue working on in the future. Some key take aways that I learned while working on it were the following:
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Shooter fundamentals (raycasts, weapon mechanics, etc.).
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Enemy class construction (behaviours, pathfinding, hitboxes, etc.).
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More polished HUD UI and associated animations.
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Performant level management (seamless transitions, procedural generation, spawn pools).​
/ details
Static Cut was a project that built upon a lot of my previous games and pushed my knowledge of games systems, including shooter mechanics, enemy AI and pathfinding, proper level management, particle systems and shaders, as well as creating more refined UI.
Melee Enemy
Prototype Enemy Spawner
Level Greybox
Something that was an important pillar of the game's design was the fast paced, low downtime action, meaning I wanted to keep loading screens as unintrusive as possible. When working on the level manager, I tried to keep it as a performant as I could while allowing the player to retain control of the player. This ended up working well with the elevators I had planned, where each level can be separated by a short elevator trip, with no loading screens or pauses during gameplay.
I originally planned on having procedural levels, so the level manager used to also randomly generate a new set of levels for each player (with level starts and ends connecting seamlessly), but this ended up being replaced with the current system.
HUD UI
Level Complete UI
With this project I wanted to make improvements on the simple programmer UI featured in some of my other work. I decided to put a lot of effort into forming a style for the game, ending up with a comic book / pop-art look for most of the game's menus and UI. This also ended up going well with the shaders and colour palette I used, which gave the whole game a retro finish.