Bloompunk

Bloompunk is an FPS roguelike where players fight through an organic battlefield where every bullet, ability, and enemy lives in an interconnected ecosystem of reactive elements. Sow your seeds with every shot and give nature a chance to start fresh.

Bloompunk was a USC Games Advanced Games Project, and as such is part of a year-long pitch and production cycle with the full support of USC Games. The project was led by creative director David Zheng and supported by a cross-disciplinary development team of 40 students. I joined the project in May of 2022 and stayed on for one full year as an engineer, primarily focused on enemy programming and AI.

You can download Bloompunk on itch.io, here!

What I Did:

Gameplay Engineer

  • Designed and implemented enemy architecture to design specifications, utilizing a basic state machine, as well as some bespoke systems for movement.

  • Coordinated with art and sound teams to establish development pipelines, ensuring timely delivery of the intended gameplay experience.

  • Collaborated with a team of 5 engineers writing code independently to ensure systems would be able to work together before they were fully fleshed out.

Code snippet outlining the basics of the enemy state machine, with some currently-implemented states along the navigation bar.

Code snippet outlining the basics of the enemy state machine, with some currently-implemented states along the navigation bar.

An early experiment in NavMesh traversal to set up the movement system.

An early experiment in NavMesh traversal to set up the movement system.

A still from early development including functional versions of two enemy archetypes: the Spawner and the Sniper.

A still from early development including functional versions of two enemy archetypes: the Spawner and the Sniper.

A bit further along in development, this still shows off our hornet enemy. Functional forms of all 3 of our basic enemy types have now been flushed out.

A bit further along in development, this still shows off our hornet enemy. Functional forms of all 3 of our basic enemy types have now been flushed out.

A still from late development showcasing our improved sniper enemies. This image in particular highlights a bug where spawn limits weren't being handled properly (which ended up being a simple case of improperly tracking enemies who had spawned after

A still from late development showcasing our improved sniper enemies. This image in particular highlights a bug where spawn limits weren't being handled properly (which ended up being a simple case of improperly tracking enemies who had spawned after level start).

A still from the release version of the project, in which the player simultaneously fends off Hornets, Stingshots (snipers), and Hivebacks (spawners)

A still from the release version of the project, in which the player simultaneously fends off Hornets, Stingshots (snipers), and Hivebacks (spawners)