George Boden
Game Designer, Writer


Projects

January - April 2016
Break Squad is a solo project developed in Unity that was inspired by franchises like Ghostbusters where a team of heroes fights a dangerous army of enemies while causing costly amounts of collateral damage around them. My biggest focus for this project was to create an in-game atmosphere that was both humorous and heavy on player feedback.

Download Break Squad

Squad members are largely expendable, with backup arriving frequently. All the music and art in this project was created by me.

January - April 2016
Fat Zoo is a directional top-down puzzle game developed in a 2-person design team with Unity. Players must guide dozens of fat animals back to their cages while collecting new types of animals along the way.

Download Fat Zoo (Windows)
Download Fat Zoo (Android)

I was the lead developer in this project and was responsible for the technical side of things, as well as the creation and redesigning of many of the levels. Myself and my teammate were both heavily involved in the game's design and worked closely for the duration of the project.

July 2014 - May 2015
I worked with Pocket Dragon Games, a designer-heavy 13-person team, on a drawing-based Wii U party game, Doodle Dash! My role was as a designer, writer, and public representative. The project was developed in the Wii U version of Unity under Nintendo's NDA.

My work included designing and prototyping the minigame Volcano Panic, collaboration with the artists to develop the style guide, integration and improvement of special effects and feedback, and general content/system design which required strong communication with the team and the writing of design documents.

March - April 2015
K.A.B.O.O.M. is a suspenseful bomb disarming puzzle game where you use instructions from a handbook to cut wires in the correct order. My responsiblities on the team were to work with the other designer in developing the game, creating all the 2D art, and writing the bomb disposal handbook. The project can be downloaded from the DigiPen Game Gallery.
Download K.A.B.O.O.M.

The instruction-based gameplay of the project was in part inspired by games like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes and Papers, Please, while the Trauma Center series was observed for its portrayal of suspense.

December 2014
Flag Swipers is a prototype I developed over the course of five days in Unity. It's a 1-on-1 competitive capture the flag game where both players are given a boomerang-like weapon to fight with.

The project was created with a heavy focus on visual and audio feedback, including effects such as slow motion and a flag trail.

January - April 2014
Buddy Cop Movie: The Game is a cooperative shooter based on cheesy action-heavy B movies. This was a solo project which I created dozens of 2D sprites for and coded in Python with DigiPen's in-house game engine, the Zero Engine. Both characters can move on a vertical line at the center of the screen, and must fight off enemies on the left and right sides of the screen. Certain cooperative mechanics exist such as being able to revive or switch places with partners.

This project was used as an example of a successful cooperative game in one of DigiPen's 2D Game Design classes.

September - October 2013
Lola in Loose Leaf Land is a point-and-click adventure game where all the art assets were made with looseleaf paper. This was a solo project coded in Python with DigiPen's in-house engine, and is intended for younger players, or players who are not familiar with the genre.

Download Lola in Loose Leaf Land

The player navigates the space with three tools at their disposal: a pair of scissors, a roll of tape, and a thought bubble sticker which can be used to receive hints from Lola. These tools are used to interact with the paper environments and help Lola find her missing dog, Lily.

January - April 2013
Hero Knight Man is a top-down beat 'em up where your score and fighting ability add to your name title. The objective of the game is to defeat hordes of enemies while scoring as many points as possible. Features include dual weapon combat and combo-based scoring. It's available for download from the DigiPen Game Gallery.

Download Hero Knight Man.

My responsibilities in the game were all design related. I worked with other designers on system/enemy design, and also created the levels for the game. In addition, the trailer above was made by me.

In 2013, I wrote a paper on EarthBound for the GDC Game Narrative Review. I won a Gold Award for the paper, and was given the opportunity to present a poster (left) at GDC the same year.

This review describes the roles of the Chosen Four in EarthBound, as well as Giygas' role as the antagonist. The paper can be read here, the poster can be viewed here, and a list of winners in the GDC Game Narrative Review can be found here.