Dragon Dance, 2013
This past weekend, I participated in Molyjam, an annual event where game creators of all kinds are challenged to build game prototypes over a period of 48 hours. These games are to be inspired by the tweets of Molydeux, a twitter personality designed as a spoof of Peter Molyneux. (Thanks again to Anna Kipnis and the folks who made this incredible event possible.)
Dragon Dance is a rhythm game (prototype) developed with Unity3D for Oculus Rift. In this game, you take on the role of a daring knight who must control and tame a fierce dragon with the rhythmic swish of your sword and shield.
Our team included:
Gregory Romine (Astrophysicist at NASA) - Programmer
Andrew Gaubatz (Software Engineer at Kabam) - Programmer
Angelo Hizon (Art Director at VastApps Inc) - 3D artist and animator
Anthony Aiello (UI Designer at Revel Systems - tristamus.com/) - 3D artist extraordinaire
Celeste Gamble (UI Artist at TopHatter) - Creature artist and animator
Robin Yukiko (Music Professional) - Musician
The idea for this ambitious project was put forth by Angelo, a fellow game jammer with whom I have worked in the past. Originally, the hope was to create a 3D game that used both the Oculus Rift and motion capture technology via web cam. Although most of the team had never worked with the Oculus Rift device before, implementing it proved to be rather straight-forward.
However, we did not, in the end, have time to fully implement the motion gameplay, so a controller was used instead. (A special thanks to programmer Kyle Lowry for his attempts.)
Also due to the tight time constraints of the Game Jam, the majority of our art efforts were focused on the creation of the 3D hero character and dragon, which needed to be modeled, textured, rigged and animated. Therefore most of the environment assets are not original to our game, but serve as placeholders only, to give an idea of a potential space.
And of course, a rhythm game would not be a rhythm game without awesome music, for which we can thank Robin Yukiko.
All and all, it was a exhilarating and challenging learning experience!
This game is even more cool when you’re wearing the Oculus Rift device, of course.
Dragon Dance is a rhythm game (prototype) developed with Unity3D for Oculus Rift. In this game, you take on the role of a daring knight who must control and tame a fierce dragon with the rhythmic swish of your sword and shield.
Our team included:
Gregory Romine (Astrophysicist at NASA) - Programmer
Andrew Gaubatz (Software Engineer at Kabam) - Programmer
Angelo Hizon (Art Director at VastApps Inc) - 3D artist and animator
Anthony Aiello (UI Designer at Revel Systems - tristamus.com/) - 3D artist extraordinaire
Celeste Gamble (UI Artist at TopHatter) - Creature artist and animator
Robin Yukiko (Music Professional) - Musician
The idea for this ambitious project was put forth by Angelo, a fellow game jammer with whom I have worked in the past. Originally, the hope was to create a 3D game that used both the Oculus Rift and motion capture technology via web cam. Although most of the team had never worked with the Oculus Rift device before, implementing it proved to be rather straight-forward.
However, we did not, in the end, have time to fully implement the motion gameplay, so a controller was used instead. (A special thanks to programmer Kyle Lowry for his attempts.)
Also due to the tight time constraints of the Game Jam, the majority of our art efforts were focused on the creation of the 3D hero character and dragon, which needed to be modeled, textured, rigged and animated. Therefore most of the environment assets are not original to our game, but serve as placeholders only, to give an idea of a potential space.
And of course, a rhythm game would not be a rhythm game without awesome music, for which we can thank Robin Yukiko.
All and all, it was a exhilarating and challenging learning experience!
This game is even more cool when you’re wearing the Oculus Rift device, of course.