Fulchrine (2011)

What are you to do when you want to make your first game, but have zero artistic talent or ability to code a physics engine? Why, make a text adventure, of course!

Coded in Visual Basic in high school, Fulchrine is one of Jared's very first projects in the history of his career.

And boy, does it look like exactly that.

The game features breathtaking set-pieces, including "click the correct key to open the chest!", "Press menu buttons to fight a dragon!", and "Take out a hydra by clicking its heads in order!"

Truly exciting stuff.

Battle Pong (2011)

A combination of Pong and Brick Breaker, both players attempt to bounce their ball past the other player's paddle, all the while aiming for power-up blocks in the center to give them an edge!

One of Jared's first GameMaker projects from high school that would eventually shape his aspirations for careers in the future.

It was also likely the project that gave him the least amount of headache compared to everything else he's ever made.

Extra Credits (2013)

Jared's first game jam game, recklessly smashed together in less than 48 hours with a team of three. The result was a simple Space Invaders-esque clone, starring fake credits as the enemies while the "credits scroll on the end of the world."

This game was the defining turning point in the poor innocent freshman's life. From this moment on, he knew for sure that he wanted to dedicate himself to a life of madness and insanity developing video games.

Perspection (2013)

Back when "2D platformers with a twist" were all the rage, Jared tried to make one of his own for his first dedicated solo project. Change the force of gravity in any direction to guide your character to the goal line. Walk on walls, ceilings, or even change your momentum in midair!

Despite liking the initial prototype, various circumstances caused him to shift his attention to making and completing Cipher instead.

Like a Ninja (2013)

"You only get one!"

That was the theme for Jared's first Ludum Dare game jam. Naturally, he interpreted that to mean "You only get one second," and cranked out a split-second typing game.

Fun fact, even the developer has a difficult time beating the final boss sometimes. Creating this game led him to discover that he sucks at typing.

That Freaky Basement Feeling (2014)

Eager to learn Unity, yet woefully inexperienced in the world of 3D modelling and animating, Jared decided to take the easy way out and develop a horror game that took place in pitch blackness.

Save for a few lights that acted as "safe zones," the player was forced to use their ears to hear where unrendered monsters menacingly didn't move from their static positions while they growled, screeched, moaned, and whispered at the player. All gutteral sounds were lovingly made by Jared himself in a musty, non-soundproofed basement. Despite the obvious cheapness of the game, it still managed to make some people simultaneously jump away from the computer and forget they were wearing headphones.

The unfortunate tragedy is that this game was developed before Jared took any sort of version control seriously. The only living stable relic comes in the form of a unity.3d file that is no longer supported by most browsers. Significant work would have to be done in order to make the game WebGL compatible, so the game is only playable exclusively in Internet Explorer (as of Dec 2019)

The wonderful sound effects, however, have been preserved for all eternity, and can be found here. Jared takes no responsibility for any trauma that may be inflicted upon listening.

Estranged (2014)

Created in a sparse 48 hours for a game jam, eStranged is the culmination of a team of four's efforts to make a unique puzzle game using the theme "Separation." The resulting fever dream that is the final product took 4th place out of approximately 20 teams.

Despite there being many cryptic messages written on the walls of the levels, and the "suggestion" of a deeper plot, the developers advise to just not think about it. Especially considering the fact that the ending was literally cut with nothing to replace it due to time constraints.

It turns out creating a stable, fun game as well as a unique, interwoven plot is not exactly easy to in a single a weekend. Lesson learned.

Fridge Fling (2014)

A personal favorite game that just baaaaarely got pushed out by other more recent projects, Fridge Fling was crated during a game jam that had a focus on children's education. It was designed to teach kids about the complexities of projectile motion, and how it can be impacted by a variety of variables.

Naturally we had to get goofy with it and allow players to launch anything from a humble baseball to an impossibly gigantic full-size refrigerator.

During playtests with children, the game received positive reception with one glowing review being, "It's pretty fun...once you know what you're supposed to do."

Time is Running Out (2014)

An eclectic cacophony of madness, Time is Running Out was developed during the Epic Game Jam, a jam that would constantly add new themes to the competition, including "running out of time," "super bacon," "tentacles," and "butt-to-butt teleportation."

And dammit if the team didn't try to include every single one of those themes.

The result is a single-player racing game where you race yourself. A ghost time-trial, of sorts. With no goal other than "beat yourself," the game was slightly lacking in content, but certainly not in art direction.

Cinema Jumper (2014)

This is what happens when you let students do a free-form "creative" project instead of writing an end-of-term paper for your Japanese Cinema class.

Developed while abroad in Japan, Cinema Jumper attempts to capture the direcorial styles of Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu, and Kenji Mizoguchi through its level design.

Upon further reflection, this was way more work than a term paper, but it's too late to have regrets now.

Demon Walrus King (2015)

"We don't talk about Demon Walrus King"

This game serves as a harsh lesson in over-scoping. Initially developed as a casual game jam game by a group of 4 engineers, Demon Walrus King was supposed to be a puzzle/action brawler that featured a dynamically changing player avatar that would become more powerful as it killed more enemies.

What it ended up becoming was a confusing mess of a game with zero challenge and a slew of half-baked mechanics that did not mesh well with each other.

This game gets the dubious honor of being a constant reminder that not every idea is a good idea, and sometimes things need to be pared down.

TOO MANY BULLETS!!!!! (2015)

Taking the "bullet hell" genre to the absolute extreme, TOO MANY BULLETS!!!!! allows you to build an army out of the corpses of your slain enemies. Grow your legion and lay waste to everything in your path.

It became apparent VERY quickly that there was, in fact, too many bullets on the screen after a certain point, making it literally impossible to dodge everything. To compensate, the hitbox for the player character was removed, thus removing any shackles that would restrict them from inflicting total mayhem onto the screen.

Untitled Typing Game (2016)

Ever wanted to re-live the stress of starting a really important school assignment minutes before it's due, maniacally mashing away at the keyboard as you question in vain your poor decision-making and time management?

Well now you can with this untitled one-week prototype! Mash on literally all of the keys on the keyboard to barf out as much essay onto the screen as possible. Refill your brain gauge by doing researech on the Internet, and correct your silly typos as the deadline looms!

Originally developed to force myself to learn Unity's UI system. Mission accomplished, though the final product leaves much to be desired from a polish and tutorial perspective, so in The Graveyard it remains.

Untitled Trampoline Game (2016)

An attempt to recreate the silly and somewhat dangerous shenanigans Jared would get up to as a kid. Arm yourself with a sword and take to the trampolines as you swipe at your opponent's head with realistic karate-chop action!

This 2-player game is controlled with WASD and the arrow keys for players 1 and 2 respectively. Left and right spins your character and aims their jump trajectory, down lets you swipe your sword, and up flips your character's facing direction.

Developed as a one-week prototype to exercise some design muscles under strict time constraints. The idea had promise, but the game is not nearly polished enough to be stable. Unfortunately, the only build that was salvaged seems to be barely functional, to boot. A well-learned lesson about the wonder that is version control.

Higher Desire (2019)

While it would be great to say that nothing but portfolio-worthy smash hits have been produced since 2016, the harsh reality is that sometimes mistakes can still be made, especially when under a time crunch.

As a crossover between an arcade shooter and a meditative rhythm game, in Higher Desire players are tasked with pressing the space key to the rhythm of a monk's breathing while using their accumulated "focus" to ward away any temptations that might be wafting over from a nearby Cheerleader Camp.

The real nail in the coffin for this game was expending far to much time and energy towards a seamless transition between the title screen and gameplay. Although the transition works (and admittedly looks really rad), it was not exactly core to the gameplay loop, which ended up being half-baked, slightly confusing, and overly simplistic all at the same time.

While this was by no means a disaster of a game, it didn't quite live up to the standards of the team that created it for Ludum Dare. As such, it earns the dubious honor of being the latest addition to the "Honorable Mentions" list.