Austin Hyatt

Programmer and Designer

Conjoror’s Underground

January 2021 – May 2021

Lead Designer, Game Programmer, Lead Artist

Sections of a demo video made to showcase the game

Development Info

Roles: Lead Designer, Game Programmer, Lead Artist

Team Size: 4

Development Time: 5 Months

Company: EDIKT Studios

Tools Used: Unity, Photon, Jira, Github, Photoshop & Illustrator, Google Sheets

During development our team employed a Scrum methodolgy and development cycle. We would preform weeklong sprints, have daily standups and weekly retrospectives, and maintain a tasks and project backlogs using Jira.

Game Info

Genre: Multiplayer, Roguelike, Deck Building Card Game

Platform: Windows, MacOS

Project Status: Complete

In Conjuror’s Underground players pick 2 schools of magic to combine, then build their decks to create powerful synergies as the game progresses. Players must slay the monsters of the underground to gain cards and gold while keeping their opponent at bay.

The game also features fully online play between two game instances using the Photon engine for Unity. An account login system and secure account database were also included.

Contributions

  • Designed Card System and Battle Mechanics, Such as Targeting, Damage Clashing, Card Effect Types, and Focus Slots
  • Designed Cards for Each Magic Type, Creating Many Possible Deck Archetypes and Synergies Between Cards
  • Balanced All Cards, Studying Many Popular Card Games to Understand the Design Behind Strength and Mana Costs
  • Programmed Card Battle System, Including Cohesive System Logic for the Interaction of all Card Effects with Players and Enemies
  • Programmed UI and Information Popups, with Expanding Information Sections for Different Parts of the Cards and Warnings for Incorrect Actions
  • Programmed Player Interaction and Animations, With Interactive and Dynamically Sized Player Hand, Card Dragging and Selection, and UI Interaction
  • Programmed In-Engine Card Maker to Add Card Effects to Scriptable Card Objects Within the Unity Inspector, Speeding up Workflow and Allowing for Easy Balance Changes.
  • Created Art for Magic Symbols, Card Bases, and Title

What I learned

  • Learned about the many aspects of card game design Like energy systems, card advantage, tempo & energy curve, archetypes/playstyles, and synergies.
  • Learned how to work with a team and develop a game using an Agile/Scrum framework. I gained experience in planning out development tasks and communicating progress effectively to my team.
  • Make sure that core programming of the game is clean and concise, so that it can be easily understood and expanded without complications.