This site is currently under construction. If you have any specific questions, please e-mail Auston at: auston.montville@gmail.com

Premise

Four Player Squared (4P²) is a platformer for two to four players that plays with elements of cooperation and competition simultaneously. Players have to navigate through levels using platforms, switches, and keys, all while collecting points and avoiding various traps. The core mechanic which defines the co-opetiton gameplay is that players interact with each other physically. Players can push each other, carry each other, and jump off each other to get to new areas of each level. Players can compete to get the most points, or they can (and sometimes must) cooperate to reach new areas of each level.

Death is a mechanic.

When any single player dies, it’s of no penalty. Within a second the dead player will respawn on top of any one of the living players. This promotes not only a sense of adventure to explore dangerous areas, but it also creates player roles. Some players like to sit back and become a respawn point for their friends, while others use this to instantly teleport to another player’s location. Although, players often get excited and when everyone dies at once, they are all sent back to the last checkpoint. This system creates a flow where if players succeed or fail, they all experience the same feeling. This flow allows players to have experiences that start at one point, spread out based on individual choices, and then are brought back together through careful level design.

Level Editor.

Being a multiplayer game, community is very important. With 4P²’s level editor, players can easily create and share new experiences through a simple interface.

Development.

I was the sole developer for 4P². The game was developed in Multimedia Fusion 2. Art assets were created in Photoshop. Sound assets were created with sfxr, and music was created with FL Studio. Many people provided wonderful feedback and playtesting to make it a far better product than I could have alone.

Play with your friends here.

Requiem Trailer from Auston Montville on Vimeo.

Premise

Requiem is a widescreen 3D Vertical shooter or Sh’mup based upon “Requiem”, Wolfgang Mozart’s last mass. The player plays as a retired military inventor commissioned to destroy the weapons he had spent his life creating. The narrative is based upon aspects of “Requiem” the mass as well as aspects of Wolfgang Mozart’s life. Each level in the game is based upon a different song from “Requiem”, and the events, attacks, flybys, etc. of the AI is all timed to the music.

Gameplay

Requiem uses the well developed practices of the shmup genre and makes this gameplay accessible beyond the hardcore audience. Since Mozart’s music brings in a wider audience, Requiem is built with five separate difficulty modes to allow beginners to play the whole game while still challenging the most hardened shmup vets. In addition, friends can play together in co-operative mode, working together to progress.

Game Loop

Requiem, unlike other shmups, implements a checkpoint and respawn system. One of the faults of shmups is making a player continuing the game from where they lost. Since shmups get progressively more and more difficult, this brings a player who has lost in a challenging section to an even more challenging section, often leading to frustration. Requiem will bring the player back to a checkpoint when the ship is destroyed. This gives the player a moment to gather their thoughts and attempt the section again. If the player continues to lose, they will eventually be forced to the beginning of the Act (a series of levels). In a normal shmup, a player would frequently put the controller down at this point. But, in Requiem, destroying enemies earns you points. Points that can be used to upgrade your ship.

Upgrade System

By using points players can upgrade over 30 aspects of their ship. This includes everything from homing rockets, flamethrower size, targeting radius, cannon number, movement speed, and just about any stat that could be tweaked on the ship. With the increased power, players are inspired to go back to the level and try again, frequently progressing much further than they had before. This loop removes player frustration and inspires players to keep at it as they are always either improving their own skills or the power of their ship. When the player does finally reach the end of the game, they have gained enough power to start tackling the next difficulty, extending their play experience.

Development

I am currently working on Requiem with Joel Pelletier and Dan Peavey. I serve the roles of Creative Director and Engineer. My tasks include:
-Programming the game
-Building tools for other team members
-Discussing with team members and making final decisions (including design, narrative, and presentation choices).
-Integrating and Creating sound effects
-Managing the creative vision of Requiem

Requiem is being developed in the Unity Engine
Autodesk Maya and Adobe Photoshop are used to create the visual assets.
Music was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and others
Audio is created in Audacity
Documentation done with Microsoft Office
Project management organized through unfuddle

Requiem is to be released in May of 2010
Play the Beta, submitted to the 2010 Student IGF!

What would you give for love?

Premise

The Eve asks players the question of ‘What would you give for love?’ and allows them to answer it through gameplay. As a 2D platformer, players start this game where most games end; a brave young hero enters the final castle where the evil boss holds the princess. After overcoming the ‘final’ challenge, the player is not rewarded with the princess, but is instead seperated from her once again. To get to the place where the princess is held, the player must travel through various lands representing the aspects of the player’s character that holds him back from being with the princess. Things like lust, pride, and vanity.

Gameplay

At the end of each of these levels the player must give up some part of himself, proving that he will give anything for love. This results in the player losing one of the character’s powerful abilities. By using an degrade system (as opposed to an upgrade), players choose how they make the game more challenging to themselves. Some players will overcome all the difficult challenges, but other players may discover something else about themselves. Maybe it’s not worth it to give it all up. Or maybe, there is something better to gain.

Dynamical Meaning

The Eve provides a space for players to answer their own questions through the technique of dynamical meaning as defined by Jonathan Blow. Nearly every single aspect of the game has relevance to the overall theme and meaning of the game. That being said, The Eve is interpretive, as most interactive experiences are, and provides different messages to different players. There are four endings in The Eve, but neither of them are good or bad, they are just different. We believe this to take advantage of gaming as a medium, allowing a conversation (through interaction) about a topic as opposed to the traditional method of presenting a message as often seen in film, books, and music.

Development

The Eve was developed in Multimedia Fusion 2 over a 4 month period. I had the pleasure of working with Husam Al-Ziab, Mike Fowler, and Alex Gustafson on this project. We used a multitude of programs to develop this game:

Photoshop, Maya, Flash, FL Studio, and, SFXR.

I filled the roles of Creative Director, Engineer, and Composer on this project. My duties included:
Programming the game
Designing workflows and pipelines for art integration and level creation
Composing the soundtrack
Working with team members to make design, narrative, and presentation decisions.
Managing the creative vision of The Eve

Find out what you would give up for love here.

Fatal Choice

During the Spring of 2009 I took a course instructed by Mary DeMarle in interactive storytelling. The culmination of this course was a narrative document encompasing the various tasks that a narrative designer has to do. Working from a simple pitch document I wrote the narrative for Fatal Choice, a sci-fi third person shooter revolving around the meaning of fate and choice through the eyes of a Pre-Death Agent.

The narrative design document includes the premise, a summary of the plot and game levels, character biographies, sample scripts (for cutscenes and cinematics), and sample dialog. Through this I learned the skills necessary to be an effective narrative designer including: character development, plot development, writing in different voices, writing for screenplay, integration of narrative and gameplay, and various techniques of both writing and expressing a story for games.

Read the Fatal Choice Narrative Design Document here.

The blueprint is a formal document that is the merging of gameplay and narrative. By lining up the game starting from key narrative points and breaking them down into individual level sequences, it is possible to view the narrative from the eyes of the player. This process ends in adjustments being made to both gameplay and the narrative in order to forge them into one cohesive whole, providing a more immersive game experience.

Read the Fatal Choice Blueprint here.

Music

In my spare time I enjoy playing and composing music. I prefer to use Digital Audio Workstations for composition as it gives me access to nearly every sound I could want. This self taught skill has landed me the role of Audio Designer / Composer on many small game projects.

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player
Download ( Astral Plane).

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player
Download ( Christopher Dreams of a Rave).

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player
Download ( Clash of Steel).

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player
Download ( Decaying World).

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player
Download ( Little Dood Part II).

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player
Download ( Moai Island Game Theme).

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player
Download ( Oh Noez!).

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player
Download ( R:\).

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player
Download ( Soar Into the Bright New Future).

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player
Download ( That Sad December).

3D Art

Kremble

In this 5 week assignment for my 3D modelling class, I created a current gen asset, featuring normal and specularity maps. This ancient space ship, the Kremble, was created as a lunar device. Unfortunately, the scientists miscalculated the size of the moon, resulting in a mission of the moon landing on the Kremble.

Barrel and Cardbord Box

An introductory assignment creating the essential barrels and crates of many games.

Barrel = 106 triangles

Box = 12 triangles

Modeled in Maya 2008

Textures created with Photoshop CS3

Normals created with Crazy Bump

This animation was created as part of my 3D animation class. Over the course of 5 weeks I modeled, rigged, animated, and rendered this short in Maya 2008. Copositing was done in Adobe After Effects CS4 and editing was done in Sony Vegas Pro 8.