Student Projects

Student projects are an integral part of the curriculum at the Games Academy. Every semester there is a new project, which is a big part of the marks as well as the experience as a game developer. The first semester has some restrictions concerning the type of game you are able to design. In later semesters these restriction are lifted and you are free to design the game you like to design. The projects are clearly structured, with some milestones and a gold master at the end.

The work with students from different fields of work like artists, game designers, producers and programmers is quite challenging and reflects the working environment at a game studio but without any risks.

My education was five semesters long which results in five different student projects. On the first project we were only about five game designers, in later semesters the team size is increased to up to 10 students from different fields - artists, producers, programmers and game designers.

I: Revenge of the Cookie

Revenge of the Cookie was our first student project during the first semester as a game design student at the Games Academy. It is a 2D platformer to be modelled on Super Mario Bros.

The player character is a chocolate chip cookie who wants to avenge the annihilation of his people by the vicious vegetable armies. Like Mario, he can run and jump through the game world. His special ability is sticking to walls or moving objects. This way he is able to reach otherwise unreachable areas inside the levels. His enemies of the vegetable army are mushrooms with katanas, peas with helmets and chillies who spat fire. With a jump on an enemy's head Cookie is able to dispatch them easily.

Originally we planned to have three to five levels, worked in Unity but switched engines to Torque 2D. The team consisted of five game designers, all of us without prior knowledge in game production. We had about four month time from an idea to a finished game. Unfortunately, we could not achieve all the goals we had set for the game but at the time of the gold master we were able to present one level and a game with some bugs.

INFO
Genre:2D Platformer
Engine:Torque 2D
Production Start:April 2011
Production End:August 2011
TEAM
Producing:Kamil Balitzki
Programming:Nils Jordan; Maximilian Buck
Game Design:Felix Günther; Kamil Balitzki; Nils Jordan
Leveldesign:Felix Günther; Kamil Balitzki
Interface Design:Nils Jordan
Art:Alexander Bohl
Sound:Nico Wozniak
Story / Setting:Felix Günther

II: Helios

Helios is a 3rd Person Horror Shooter modelled on Dead Space. It was designed by game designers in their second semester and artists and a producer in their third semester.

The player character is a super soldier who has to investigate the radio silence inside a secret paramilitary research station. A virus mutated the workers at the facility and made them nearly invincible. The soldier is immune to the virus and equipped with ice pistols and grenades that are capable of defeating the mutated.

INFO
Genre:3rd Person Horror Shooter
Engine:Unreal Development Kit
Production Start:Oktober 2011
Production End:Februar 2012
TEAM
Producing:Josef Vorbeck
Programming:Rico Nemetz
Game Design:Rico Nemetz
Leveldesign:Nils Jordan; Jürgen Miersch
Interface Design:Rico Nemetz; Edward Agwi
Art:Jürgen Miersch; Edward Agwi; Nermin Muric;
Florian Schreck; Tino Englert; Malte Osterkamp
Sound:Nico Wozniak
Story / Setting:Rico Nemetz

III: Hadron

Hadron is a kind of 2.5D side scrolling platformer / racer hybrid.

The player controls a tentacle creature or ship that runs on lanes. If the colour of the ship matches the colour of the lane, the ship accelerates. There are points to be collected like in a platformer. There are two different controls, one for jumping to reach higher lanes with more points and another one is a colour switch that enables the player to change the ships colour to match the lane colour. The game's goal is to achieve the highest score in the shortest time.

INFO
Genre:3D Side-Scrolling Racer (Mobile)
Engine:Unity
Production Start:April 2012
Production End:August 2012
TEAM
Producing:Marvin Augenstein
Programming:Julian Korten; Simon Wagar; Nils Jordan
Game Design:Alexander Lenski
Leveldesign:Alexander Lenski; Tom Kaschub
Interface Design:Tilmann Milde
Art:Tom Kaschub; Svenja Hildebrandt; Sarah May;
Tilmann Milde; Alexander Lenski
Sound:Tilmann Milde

IV: Toy Flyer

Toy Flyer is a mobile game in which the player controls a helicopter inside a kids room. The goal of the game is collecting blocks and building structures with them.

INFO
Genre:3D Building Game(Mobile)
Engine:Unity
Production Start:October 2012
Production End:Februar 2013
TEAM
Producing:Simon Akbari
Programming:Veronika Kebkal; Nils Jordan; Robert Stangel
Game Design:Julien Rüggeberg
Leveldesign:Julien Rüggeberg; Christian Bittkau; Florentine Mahlow
Interface Design:Florentine Mahlow; Julien Rüggeberg
Art:Christian Bittkau; Florentine Mahlow; Maximilian Mayer



V: Adventure Toolkit for Unity / "Dork Tales"

The Adventure Toolkit for Unity is a solo project of mine, that included a graphical dialogue editor, an item editor and game play elements of classic point and click adventure game like "Monkey Island" (1 and 2) or "Day of the Tentacle". As a proof of concept and a project I will try to continue later on, I build an adventure game called "Dork Tales" with the toolkit and the help of two artists with whom I worked on Toy Flyer together. I tried to capture the humor of the old Lucas Arts adventures and combine that with my own humor into a game that features a character that I can relate to, a pen-and-paper role playing gamer. There are also some game development related jokes that I had to put in.

INFO
Genre:3D Point and Click Adventure + Unity3D Extention
Engine:Unity
Production Start:April 2013
Production End:still ongoing (GA Project End was end of August 2013)
TEAM
2D Art:Florentine Mahlow
Environment Models:Maximilian Mayer
Everything Else:Nils Jordan