Projects – Amy Stewart Game Developer

C#, Featured, Game Design, Unity3D, VR, Writing

The Price of Freedom

HTC Vive Virtual Reality Experience – Construct Studio

The Price of Freedom is an interactive room-scale Virtual Reality narrative experience for the HTC Vive. Players take the role of Agent Zero, a CIA operative. Your mission: assassinate Benjamin Miller, a radical who broke into CIA facilities and stole top secret chemical weapons research. Interact with and explore Ben’s apartment. Through documents, pictures, audio tapes, and hidden messages, players learn the truth about what Miller was searching for the night he broke in.

The narrative is based on Project MKULTRA, the CIA mind control research project of the 1950s-1960s. Contents in the experience are derived from actual declassified CIA documents.

The Price of Freedom has received high praise for its immersive story.

Design

Structured story plot, character arcs, and themes to create an immersive narrative experience
Created level design that supports the narrative
Wrote dialogue, including dramatic scenes
Directed voice actors performance

Development (Unity / C#)

Contributed to the development of the game’s interaction system, allowing players to pick up and interact with objects in the space
Implemented Flashlight mechanic, allowing hidden messages to be revealed with a UV light through a custom shader.
Implemented scripted Gameplay events

C#, Featured, Javascript, Python, Unity3D

Vera

PC Plugins for Unity and Maya – Construct Studio

VERA is an interactive content creation pipeline that bridges the gap between 3D Modeling Software and Game Engines. Through the VERA plugin, a template is used to apply functionality to a 3D model in the users modeling program of choice. A plugin within a game engine imports this 3D model and applies all of the necessary coding. The assets made with VERA interact with each other, creating an immersive game world.

Design

Worked with designers to break down concepts to technical implementation. Helped design and scope the product’s first release functionality.
Conceptualized and implemented the software’s interaction system, allowing Vera projects to be built to PC, VR, and AR simultaneously.
Contributed to the design of the Maya Plugin user flow.

Development (Unity/C#, Python, JavaScript)

Vera Maya Plugin: Developed plugin backend in Python to track node data, as well the Vera container exporter.
Designed and developed a JSON Schema and web-based JSON template editor for custom container metadata input and output.
Developed the Vera Unity importer, which automatically reads Vera metadata and attaches and sets up Unity components at import.
Developed the Unity Vera API, including our signal / receiver system which allows users to set up responses to interaction or game events without writing code, then build the same project to PC, VR, or AR .
Managed the engineering team’s schedule, scope, and resources.

C#, Featured, Game Design, Javascript, Unity3D

Beatstep Cowboys

PC Local Multiplayer Game with Twitch Play – Loaded Cow Productions

Beatstep Cowboys is a 2 player game that combines quick real-time strategy, and rhythm-based game play. The result is a competitive game that is easy enough for a little kid to pick up but also provides advanced players the opportunity to stretch the limits of their logical and predictive thinking. The game also implements a unique Twitch Play aspect, where two channels battle it out by cooperating through the Twitch Chat interface.

See more on the game: www.beatstepcowboys.com

Design

Worked with fellow designers to design levels and rapid prototype new character types.
Designed and documented the userflow and interface for the game, including creating wireframes.
Conceptulized and designed the Twitch Play Mode, including a custom interface that gives the illusion of real time feedback and add excitement to the gameplay experience.

Development (NodeJS, Unity and C#)

Implemented the Twitch Play functionality in NodeJS and the Twitch Chat Socket API.
Contributed to UI Implementation and cutscene scripting system.

C#, Featured, Game Design, Unity3D, VR

Virtual Reality Dog Experience

HTC Vive / Oculus Virtual Reality Experience – Construct Studio

Developed as a POC over the course of three weeks, this experience allows players to play fetch with a lifelike dog in a Yukon inspired environment. Developed as part of a larger proposal for dog simulation experience that would serve as a transmedia tie-in for a larger media piece.

Design

Contributed to the game proposal document. Designed and wrote the concept for game narrative and progression allowing players the fun of playing with a dog while honoring the original media’s story.
Designed primary and secondary game loops incorporating day-to-day tasks of caring for the dog, as well as progressing the larger narrative.

Development (Unity/C#)

Implemented Final IK controls and synced controls with an animated dog rig to allow the dog to track the player’s head and hands, as well as pick up the stick from any position
Built AI Tasks syncing the dog animation SDK with AI behavior.
Implemented Art and Environment Assets

AR, C#, Featured, Unity3D, UX/UI

AR Christmas Tree

iOS Augmented Reality Location Based Experience – Construct Studio with VRScout

Developed for the VR Scout Christmas Party in conjunction with ADVR, this Christmas tree is a magical holiday experience. Users watch as an AR Christmas Tree grows before their eyes. Users can place ornaments and season greetings on the tree, as well as browse messages left by other guests in real time. As the night goes on the tree fills up and sparkles with life.

Design

Contributed to the design of the user flow of guests experience through the app, from generating the tree, to reading messages, to placing their own.
Designed and implemented the Christmas-themed UI with Unity GUI to allow users to select ornaments, fill in messages and place ornaments on the tree.

Development (Unity / C#)

Devised and implemented a solution using ARKit and Vuforia to allow the Christmas tree to be placed on a marker, but retain its position in space when the marker was not visible.
Used the Google Poly API to load custom designed ornaments.
Interfaced with a custom built REST API to store user changes and allow app users to see live updates to the tree.

C#, Unity3D, UX/UI, VR

VR Addiction Therapy

HTC Vive / Oculus Virtual Reality – Construct Studio / Well Played Studio

Developed for a client for use in rehabilitation settings, this virtual reality experience places drug rehab patients in either calming or triggering environments, along with trigger objects such as drugs and alcohol. The patient then undertakes various activities in the environment – activities includes breathing exercises and Tilt Brush style art therapy. While the patient is in VR, therapists control and monitor the experiences from their PC. In addition to these exercises, the experience needed a custom dashboard, allowing for additional third party virtual reality experiences to be launched and monitored by the therapist.

Design

Communicated with the client to determine desired outcome and formulated a plan for scope and implementation.
Designed and implemented the UI for the therapist control panel and the drawing activity, working with the client’s requirements and provided assets.

Development

Implemented system for dynamically loading scenes and trigger objects, as well as easily allowing more scenes and objects to be added as developed.
Developed a launcher for third party experiences, allowing VR experiences to be monitored and controlled from the PC by a therapist.