Alumni Profile: Pod O'Donnell
Red Spear - 2016 Team
Tranzfuser Project Description
“Gravity Stomp was a first person gravity manipulation arena shooter.
A first person shooter made with unreal engine in which the core mechanic was the ability to change your gravity to be one of 6 directions. Getting shot at? Choose the ceiling as your new gravity origin and up (down) you go”
Quick Q&A
If you could turn the clock back, would you do anything differently?
On a high level I don’t think I would do much differently but there are many things I would do on a technical level. The details may not make sense to most but using a UE4 plugin which derived from the Pawn class and not the Character class would be the main problem.I would have avoided spending many of the 10 weeks adding my own implementation of UE4’s character movement interpolation however this was a great learning experience so for my personal development it may have been just as useful to get stuck in this trap.From a planning point of view possible more granular planning so that my other team members had shorter term goals and wouldn’t lose momentum as much as we did. Productivity was spiky across some areas of the development but a shorter sprint approach may have alleviated this
What made you want to take part in the competition?
Tranzfuser was a great way for me and my university peers to get together after our degrees and have fun making using our learned skills to develop something that was being made to be played, not as a bit of research. We had a lot of fun and importantly learned a lot about the reality of game development.
Why should the up-and-coming game dev talent of tomorrow apply to Tranzfuser 2021?
To us as soon as we heard about the scheme we were sold. Obtaining funding to embark on the start to finish development of a game with full creative control? That’s an opportunity not many have and many would kill for.I’m just thankful that we had this opportunity, it was instrumental in my quest to enter the game’s industry and I know anyone else who applies and is accepted will be able to say the same.
What benefits did Tranzfuser bring to your game dev career?
Gave us the funding to allow us to dedicate our time to the project for 10 weeks without having to worry about what we were going to do to survive. Every minute spent on the project was experience we could use to help our transition to the Games Industry and for some of us it proved invaluable. Our mentors also imparted quite a lot of good information that I keep with me to this day regarding priorities and making sure that despite being stuck on a specific area the whole picture must always be in your mind
What are you doing now?
I’m a game programmer at Sumo Digital Nottingham in my 4th year having worked on multiple (mainly racing) projects including Team Sonic Racing and Hot Shot Racing. My day to day responsibilities are programming and contributing to games, what more could I ask for?
