Doodle Defense

Player & Enemy Programmer

Made using DigiPen In-House Engine

About Bring Da Beat Back

Bring Da Beat Back (BDBB) is a Rhythm Beat-em-up developed as a year-long school project by Synthicate.

The player controls the perspective of Beatrix, a young woman who visits her home town only to find its been corrupted by NULLTONE and his legion of robots. Using the power of the beat, Beatrix and her sidekick C.U.B.E must fight to bring the city back to life.

My contribution

My main role on the team was Lead Enemy Programmer.

My responsibilities included:

  • Melee enemy implementation

  • Enemy AI controller

  • Creating custom combat manager

  • Hooking up internal rhythm system with attacks, telegraphs, and approaches

  • “Kung Fu Circle” AI behavior implementation

  • Collaborate with programmers and designers to create spawners and encounters

  • Playtesting and QA

Takeaways

This was the largest indie project I’ve worked on, with a total of 16 contributors. It was also my first time working with game designers and artists.

BDBB was also the first game I’ve worked on using Unreal Engine 5.

Communication with other team members and collaboration was key to my success within the team. Our entire team was new to the engine, so giving each other support was crucial to not only find mistakes, but to learn from them.

Overall, I’m proud of what the combat team and I could accomplish with the enemies, and I can’t wait to continue future development.