JONATHAN LAST
Senior Game Developer and media enthousiast
FEATURED PROJECT
FLUENCY FRIENDS BY SAY IT LABS
Below you will find some of my work I created during my digital arts and entertainment education at Howest.
YEAR THREE
Earning my Bachelor Independend game development.
In my third year I worked on two big projects. Each had its unique challenges that teached me project management and planning; As well as the many different subjects I've seen during my indie development education.
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Save the dinos: A arcade game designed for children with DCD (A coordination disorder) with a unique input method called "Matti".
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Internship Karaton: My internship at Happs developement, where I worded on Karaton. I not only (Re)worked existing systems but was given the opportunity to design entirly new minigames for their upcoming expansion!
INTERNSHIP
At Happs Development: Working on Karaton
Karaton is a revolutionary educational game which teaches children to read and spell in a fun way! In my internship I was able to create additional minigames within the world of Karaton as well as improve systems of the game for the next big release.
SAVE THE DINOS
Group project within DAE studios
As the only indie dev student in the group I was tasked with leading a team of developers and artists. Altough the entire project was a team effort, each person took the lead on their specialized subject. For me this was task planning, game design and general game systems code. The developers specialized in working with the Matti code. I had areally great team and learned a lot working with the developers.
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During the project we also had regular coaching sessions which focused on self reflection and reflection of the team.
YEAR TWO
Changing the way I code
In my second year I used an entity component system to build and manage larger games and keep the code easy to use.
On the Art side of things I created an animated character using a CAT rig. I also experimented with the new Unity shadergraph to create some animated liquid.
CAPTAIN TOAD: TREASURE TRACKER
Prototyping, design and iteration
In a small group we created original mechanics and levels for this 3D puzzle platformer game.
Explore the desert and find the secret to the mysterious scarab tiles. Reach the top of a pyramid guarded by bouncy enemies or break crumbling walls with the power of the bullet bill transformation!
COCKTAIL CRIMES
Clean code for large projects
An exciting multiplayer free for all heist game where you have to blend in with AI controlled guests while looking for clues on a valuable gem!
I lead the programming side on this project. I learnt a lot about using an entity component system on a larger scale and using behavior trees to create believable AI in the confines of the game's mechanics.
HERO ACADEMY
Expanding a well known game
The idea for Hero Academy started with the well known plumber game where you connect tubes to let water flow through.
I helped program this small real time puzzle game where you are hired as a dungeon designer. The examinator will walk through your dungeon and give points based on difficulty, layout and variety of your dungeon.
GHIBLI SCENE
Converting 2D art into 3D environment
A fully 3D modeled and textured scene from the animated film Spirited Away.
I started by analyzing the work of Studio Ghibli to see how they work with color, shape and lines. I then went on to model and texture the scene, using shaders to create the same feeling as the animated movie.
YEAR ONE
Experiencing everything
In my first year at DAE (Digital arts and entertainment) I was introduced to many different sides of game development.
I went from basic coding in processing to working in the unity engine and from creating basic shapes in 3dsMax to building a snapshot of a city!
CITYSCENE: RIVER CITY - BANGKOK
Snapshot of a real city
For this project we got given a location in the world from which we had to model a sample of that location. I chose a place in Bangkok called River City.
On one side of the road were rougher looking buildings with wires, carts and dusty motorbikes all over the place. On the other side was a nice restaurant with a view of the river. It was fun to model and texture the two contrasting sides of the city.
OVERCOOKED
Recreating an existing game
I learnt a lot about coding by recreating this lovely multiplayer co-op game. This was a good step up from creating basic 2D games when I was still learning some of the basics of coding.
The biggest difficulty was creating a system where you can pick up any ingredient and combine it with any other ingredient. Although the solution I used wasn't the best, the end result felt really close to the original game. Although later on I was able to create much better solutions to this type of problem.
The main focus of the project was recreating the mechanics, but I also created some basic assets instead of just using a grey blockout. For the characters I learned how to use animation layers so they could do all the things at once and still look good!
INDONESIAN ENTERTAINMENT HALL
A real building, stylized
I used the most iconic building styles from Indonesia to create this fantasy entertainment hall. It's also placed in an atmospheric location, with a river, some reeds and flowers, all based on Indonesian vegetation.
It was important that the building is recognizable from all angles so I had to learn about negative space and play with interesting shapes.
