Teeth Game
Full Vertical Slice Gameplay
Boss Room Screenshot
Double Ranged Enemy Combat Section
Title Screen
Opening Section
The Gamer Article Thumbnail
The Image that started it all. Created by our instructor years ago which helped further set the tone and development of the project.
Early brainstorming example showing enemies and room ideas
Early room layout design. Heavily inspired by other 2.5 D hack and slash games.
THE FIRST MILESTONE SUMMER 2023
This was my first working prototype, using temp art assets and scripted entirely by me. Room layouts and enemy designs were also temp. At this point the core gameplay vision was starting to manifest and it was almost time t
To talk briefly about art assets. I created a style guide as a base with a simple enemy(spike trap). Then just went down my spreadsheet of enemies I wanted to create. I spent lots of time coming up with the designs ahead of time so it was just a matter of
This was my second major milestone for the project. I was only around 6 weeks away from GDC 2024 and needed to replace almost all of the temporary art assets and further refine gameplay. There was tons of extra polish needed but after a couple weeks I mad
Once again here is the final vertical slice video showcasing the entire game. The project was a large pursuit with lots of challenges to overcome but thanks to the support of my friends and instructors I was able to have the final product turn out as is.
Title Screen Before
Title Screen After
Teeth Game
Teeth is a completely student made project created by me alongside a team of around 20 designers, 2D artists, audio designers, and more.
Annihilate toothy abominations with a gnawing hunger in a nightmarish 2.5D hack-and-slash game. Hoard their teeth to fuel your rage, traversing the endless dark-domain created by an omnipotent overseer. Destroy, absorb, and thrive until nothing remains.
Article By Andrew King Discussing Teeth and the other Academy of art Game featured at PAX east 2024
https://www.thegamer.com/academy-of-art-university-school-game-development-pax-east/
Teeth started in Summer of 2023 and it was shown off at GDC 2024 as well as PAX East. Teeth was completely built in UE5 and It ended up winning the annual Academy of Art University Spring Show 2024 game department best game overall.
For this project I wore many hats, I was a game designer, game systems and level designer, and 2D Illustrator/Animator.
DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE
Teeth started out as a simple GDD provided by our head instructor. I started brainstorming and planning immediately, emphasizing a simple core gameplay loop that could be polished and fit the original high concept:
"2D, 32 bit pixelated art
Mostly black and white grayscale.
Splashes of color for damage, story highlights, attacks.
Room to Room dungeon type levels. Simple shapes with hazards to accent level layout and combat (a little bit like Hades)
Transitions to rooms are story, atmosphere, hallways/rooms/corridors with teeth and audio setting the next stage."
The gameplay loop is simple and we wanted to emphasize this core throughout the entire project: “Move, dodge, slash, slash….dodge…slash slash slash…dodge dodge…line up shot hold to load and shoot. dodge dodge slash slash slash.”
I was not going to over-design and go out of scope. I wanted it to be simple, engaging, and concise to be as polished as possible.
Additional Presentation Slideshow with documentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11HqBCriTz7XkAwv1LDvwcs4_RRaVQV911nNUxnguHxQ/edit?usp=sharing
Additional Documentation Folder:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12o3euwFBVd6tFvK7a7vZT19OBLpXqdw_?usp=drive_link
Thank you for viewing my work.