Outnumb3r3d
Background
Over the summer of 2015 myself & a number of MSc students were tasked with porting Outnumb3r3d from the Nintendo Wii to the PlayStation 4 using the Sony PhyreEngine.
The progress of this port was shown at the European Conference on Game Based Learning in 2015. The video featured in this presentation can be viewed below.
The concept of Outnumb3r3d was created by Dr Jacob Habgood of Sheffield Hallam University. It is a two-dimensional arcade game in which the player uses mathematics to defeat monstrous enemies advancing towards their tower. The game aims to develop competency in tables-based mental maths problems.
My Roles
PlayStation Move Input
Outnumb3r3d was originally created for the Nintendo Wii & used the Wii wand for player input.
I replicated the pointer orientated control system of the Wii wand using the PlayStation Move controller, functionality which was not available "out of the box".
The Monster Editor
The PhyreEngine uses .dae files to hold model geometry & texture information. A typical resource pipeline would involve exporting a .dae file & all it's associated model data using a computer graphics package such as Maya.
Outnumb3r3d is fairly resource heavy with each monster being composed of a collection of 2D planes, each having a pivot point defined for movement.
The Monster Editor removes the need for a graphics package in the pipeline by automatically generating .dae files based on the 2D art assets supplied to it. It also allows the user to plot the pivot points required for each monsters' movement.
The Monster Editor significantly sped up the asset creation pipeline for Outnumb3r3d.