Vikram Kannappan Game Design Portfolio

V i k r a m K a n n a p p a n

PROFILE

I am a student of Architecture with a keen interest in media development. I am an idealist in my outlook on humanity but a realist in my work. I am a creative at heart but with a highly pragmatic design ethos. I see the world for what it is but also what it could be, and hope to partake in designing that future through architecture, digital media or any form of human-oriented design.

EDUCATION

Masters of Architecture

National University of Singapore

Bachelor of Arts in Architecture with a Minor in Interactive Media Development

National University of Singapore

CAP: 4.5/5 [Highest Distinction]

Student Exchange Programme

Chalmers University of Technology

GCE A-Level

Raffles Institution

Rank Points: 82.5

Integrated Programme

Raffles Institution

August 2023 - Present

August 2019 - July 2023

August 2022 - January 2023

January 2015 - December 2016

Januray 2011 - December 2014

ACHIEVEMENTS

CBDX Borderlands Finalist

University of Calgary, School of Architecture

ILOOMINATION Finalist

National Environmental Agency

Dean’s List for AY2020/2021 Semester 1

National University of Singapore

Commander’s Award (Juliet Division)

Singapore Police Force

Raffles Diploma Distinction in Leadership & Community Service

Raffles Institution

Challenge for the Urban & Built Environment (CUBE) Winner

Urban Redevelopment Authority

FedEx International Trade Challenge Finalist

Junior Achievement Asia Pacific

EXPERIENCE

Architectural Trainee

DP Architects

I worked on an array of projects including competitons, an Integrated Development in the Design stage, a retail hub in the design stage, good class bungalow in the construction stage and proposals to potential clients for Addition and Alteration Works. For the comissioned projects, I worked primarily on Revit and aided with minor design elements such as toilets, tiling and facade patterns.

Freelance Graphic Designer

I designed logos, banners, poster, camera booth frames, product packaging and cards for small businesses that sought my services

Ground Response Officer (NS Sergeant 2)

Singapore Police Force

During my National Service, I worked with a team of Regular Officers, patrolling the streets of a neighbourhood in Singapore. I was a first responder for police calls, and learnt to deal with many types of people and resolve conflicts amicably. I also developed the ability to remain calm and make logical decision in high stress situations. I also performed tasks like ascertaining facts and collecting statements.

Intern

Hiladt Architects

Converted 2D plans and elevations on AutoCAD to 3D models on Sketchup for several terrace houses

ACTIVITIES

Student Advisor

NUS Students’ Politcal Association

As an experienced member of the club, I was council to the executive committee, providing guidance when needed.

Communications Secretary (Executive Committee)

NUS Students’ Politcal Association

As the communications secretary, I oversaw the communications department, that consist of the media team which covers our branding and publicity, and the outreach team which gathers student consensus on national issues through university wide surveys. As an exco member, I was also involved in charting the direction of the club, and guiding newer members in their project planning.

Creative Director

NUS Students’ Politcal Association

As the creative director I spearhead the branding and image of the organisation by designing various things including logos for different events, the website, shirts, as well as videos.

Zone Sub-Committee (Publicity)

Ridge View Residential College

Orientation Planning Committee

Ridge View Residential College

Bronze Medallion

NUS Life Saving

I am a certified life guard for swimming pools

Students’ Council

Raffles Institution

I was the Orientation Camp In-Charge, as well as a member of my House Committee

Empowering Generation Z Founder

Own Capacity

I started a free tuition programme for underpriveleged primary school students in Potong Pasir and Jurong West, and recruited multiple volunteer teachers from my school

PROFICIENCIES & SKILLS

3D Modelling & CAD

Sketchup, Rhinocerous, AutoCAD, Autodesk CFD

BIM

Revit, ArchiCAD

Rendering

Lumion, Enscape, Twinmotion

Slicers

Cura

Office Powerpoint, Word, Excel

Extended Reality

Mixed reality development with Meta Quest

August 2022 - July 2023

August 2021 - July 2022

August 2020 - July 2021

August 2020 - April 2021

January 2020 - August 2020

August 2019 - November 2019

Febuary 2015 - November 2016

July 2013 - November 2016

Graphic Design

Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Indesign, Canva

Video Editing

Adobe Premier Pro

Game & Interaction Design

Unity, Figma

Programming

Javascript, Python, HTML

Languages

English, Tamil

Marketing & Brand Management

Wix, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Merchandising

ICON TO NAVIGATE

CONTENT

13

PARASITE

Date November 2021

Team CHEN Xingjian| Programmer/Designer

CHOONG Zhan Hong| Programmer/Designer

NEO Kar Min| QA & Tester

ONG En Jing, Crystal| Artist/QA & Tester

Vikram KANNAPPAN | Designer/Artist

Description

Parasite is a single-player top-down action game. The player controls a parasite who has to traverse a digestive system to reach and defeat the final boss. The player has to collect DNA to grow larger and unlock later levels. There are various enemies that drop food when defeated, which when eaten will increase their attack. There are also hazards to avoid. The player loses a life when in contact with hazards and enemies, and the game ends when the player runs out of lives. This game appeals to players who enjoy fast-paced action games that require timing, precision, and reaction.

GENRE: 8-bit top down action game

TECH: GameMaker

ROLE: Game & Level Design, Artist

PREMISE

The player is a sentient parasite inside someone’s digestive system and is now wreaking havoc. It attempts to traverse the digestive system, all while avoiding stomach acid, defeating other hostile microorganisms in the body and growing stronger along the way.

Lore

A parasite has somehow made its way into an unfortunate human’s digestive system. Perhaps it was ingested unknowingly. It only has one choice: eat or be eaten, and this parasite has a strong will to live. The system, however, is home to other hostile microorganisms. The player has to fight their way through the tunneling intestines, not knowing what lies on the other end. Only one way to find out, and that is to fight its way through.

Player’s Role

The player is the bacteria itself, who wants to take over the system as its home. It starts out small, and has to grow first. As it progresses and defeats more enemies, it grows bigger, and stronger, getting closer to achieving its goal.

Objective

The player is trying to take over the system it’s in, by first taking over the smaller enemies and growing into a bigger threat. It wants to explore and take over all the nooks and crannies of the system, consuming all the DNA and other microorganisms that it can. By removing all hostile microorganisms, the player can take over the system as its home.

GAME ENTITIES

PLAYER

FRY

The player is a parasitic bacteria that has the potential to grow big and dangerous by collecting DNA and FOOD. The player starts with 4 lives, and can collect up to 2 bonus lives. Eating 40 food will restore 1 life, while taking any damage will cause the loss of one life. The player has a melee attack with a 1 second cooldown, that gets stronger as food is consumed (10HP+0.1 Food)

Moves towards the player if there is a line of sight (no wall in between). If not, it stays still. Cannot pass through walls.

CHOMPER

Moves towards the player if there is a line of sight (no wall in between). If not, it stays still. Cannot pass through walls. Melee attack every 2 seconds aimed at the player. 0.5 Seconds before it attacks, its telegraph appears on its top right.

TOOTY SHOOTY ROOTY

Does not move, even when damaged. Shoots a projectile in the direction it is facing every 2 seconds.

Does not move, even when damaged. Shoots a projectile aimed at the player even without line of sight every 2 seconds. Below 100 HP, Fire rate is increased to one shot every 1 second. Below 50 HP, fire rate is increased to one shot every 0.5 seconds.

For 1 second, it turns to have its direction facing the player if there is a line of sight. It does not move during this period. At the end of charging up, it dashes for 1 second, moving in a straight line in the last direction it was facing. At the end of the dash, it unleashes an attack releasing 24 projectiles in a circle around itself and begins charging up again.

Environmental hazard that damages the player and enemies upon contact. Enemies take 10 HP damage when pushed into acid.

INTERACTABLES

The boss is stationary and shoots projectiles. The boss and its tentacles can be attacked. It enters enraged stage 1 and 2 when sufficient damage is done, changing it’s attack patterns.

LEVEL DESIGN

The game consists of 2 exploratory levels and 1 final boss level. The challenge of exploratory levels is to have the player fully explore the levels, understand the various mechanics of the game and collect all the DNA located around the levels. The obstacles present are the enemies with varying attack mechanics as well as stage hazards. There are also information entities placed in certain rooms to provide clues as needed.

Levels are segmented into rooms to pace the player. Enemies from other rooms will typically not attack you unless intended. Some segments are blocked off by breakable walls, only accessible if you have the appropriate number of DNA, used to gauge progress. You may only break the wall if your number of DNA collected equals or exceeds the number stated on the wall.

As the player collects DNA, they grow more powerful, but also get larger in size. The player thus has to be more careful with movement as they try to avoid the same hazards with their bigger hurtbox.

LEVEL 1

S: Where players will spawn in a New Game. Introduces the breakable wall.

Segment 1: Contains the Small Bacteria enemy, and hint boxes to guide players through the concept of collecting DNA to break the next wall, as well as defeating enemies to eat them and get stronger.

Segment 2: Introduces Medium Bacteria and stage hazards.

Segment 3: Contains a checkpoint. Here, the player is introduced to Projectile Bacteria. 3a presents to the player the fact that projectiles can be blocked by walls, which serves as a safe zone.

Segment 4: Combines and layers on enemies and hazards introduced in the previous segments and at the end of it, leads to Level 2 Segment 5 when the player leaves the level’s boundaries.

LEVEL 2

Segment 5: 5b introduces the Sharpshooter Bacteria. Segment directions, and the player can enter Segment 6 through 5d or arguably the harder path than 5c, but contains one life pickup.

Segment 6: 6a serves as a checkpoint and safe zone. 6c and bacteria, and contain walls that allow some time for the player deciding their next action, as well as take cover before attacking Segment 7: 7a is a long corridor with projectile bacteria lined means the projectiles cannot be dodged and must be destroyed Timing and precision is needed.

Segment 5 branches out in two or 5c. Going through 5d is pickup. and 6b introduce the Ring player to strategise before attacking appropriately. lined up at the end, which destroyed with the player’s attack.

FINAL BOSS

The final level is a spacious room containing some environmental hazards combined with the boss in the middle and several other enemies placed around it. The boss mainly makes use of projectiles that are similar to previous enemies. This level will test the player’s skill in avoiding projectiles while getting close enough to attack. The boss fight features a constant stream of projectiles that form a spiral, forcing the player to rotate around the room. The boss also periodically releases a ring of projectiles which are hard to dodge at close range, and are telegraphed for the player to react to. These projectile patterns spread out as they travel, becoming easier to dodge near the edge of the map. This encourages the player to have strategy and timing in weaving in and out while attacking. The boss fight includes 3 phases.

Phase 1: Three streams of single projectiles.

Phase 2 (Enraged 1): Occurs when the boss has had 2 tentacles destroyed. Three streams of 4 projectiles are fired.

Phase 3 (Enraged 2): Occurs when the boss has had all tentacles destroyed. Two streams of projectiles that travel forwards then backwards, forming a pattern.

VR TINY RUN

Date October 2022

Team Johannes KVERNES

Jonathan LAWRENCE

Thomas SOLIBI

Yihan YANG

Yuwen CHEN

Vikram KANNAPPAN

Description

Only 2 out of 10 children and youth reach the recommendations of 60 minutes of physical activity per day. VR Tiny Run is a Virtual Reality game that encourages children aged 12+ to perform various movements in a virtual environment. This game takes place in an ordinary bedroom, and the player, 20 times smaller than usual, needs to run, jump, duck, and climb to avoid obstacles and escape the chasing of a giant spider.

GENRE: Endless Runner, Virtual Reality

TECH: Unity

ROLE: Level Design, Environment Design, Artist

AIM

Tiny Run aims to get kids to move more by providing a fun way to do so. Virtual Reality (VR) games can potentially achieve this. VR is a simulated and immersive experience that can be similar to or different from the real world. It refers to the use of computer simulation to produce a three-dimensional virtual world, providing users with visual, auditory, tactile, and other sensory simulation so that users can instantly observe things in the three-dimensional space without restrictions and also interact with them. VR games can increase the entertainment value and interaction during exercise, and hence increase children’s exercise time.

The environment of our game is set as an ordinary bedroom to relate to children better. It allows players to explore a familiar environment to facilitate learnability, but in an unfamiliar setting to keep them engaged. The controllers of VR provide motion capture which can provide a way to transmit real-world movement into the game.

GAMEPLAY

The environment is built to make it look like the player has been shrunk and is tiny. There is a bedroom environment with obstacles, which the player has to avoid through different controls like jumping, ducking and climbing. Chasing the player is a spider, encouraging the player to run. All controls are motion based so the player has to move to play the game. The game only uses arm and head movement which is tracked by the VR controllers and headset within a set space.

There are three difficulty settings that are available in the game. Each difficulty setting controls the speed of the spider with easy being the slowest and hard the fastest. The spider does not have a constant speed throughout the run, since it is slower over certain obstacles.

The course includes pens to jump over, books to duck under and water bottles and cola cans to dodge by leaning or stepping to the side. There is also a section in the game which requires the player to climb. The game session ends by either reaching the finish line or getting caught by the spider. Upon reaching the finish line you are presented with the time it took to complete.

CONTROLS

The player is set on a linear path, where they will have to perform some movements to move forward and avoid the obstacles. The preset movements are as follows:

• Running straight requires the player to swing their arms one at a time, like running in real life

• Jumping over an object requires the player to swing both of their arms upwards

• Ducking/Dodging obstacles requires the player to move their upper body in the required direction

• Climbing requires the player to press the controller grip buttons and raise their hands one by one as if they were pulling themselves upwards

There will be a giant spider chasing the player to make the game more interesting and exciting. If the player gets caught by the spider, they lose the game.

FRIENDLY FIRE

Date April 2021 Advisor

ONG Kian Peng

Description

Friendly Fire, at its core, is a space shooter game. However, it is unique in that the player can control 4 shooters, which can also point towards the central base the player is trying to protect. Players are incentivised to do so as there is a force field around the base in which time can be slowed for a certain duration. The shooters lie outside this force field, so they would have to point inwards to capitalise on the ‘slow time’ effect. While shooting inwards, there is the possibility that the player might shoot their own base, hence the game’s name ‘Friendly Fire’.

GENRE: Space Shooter

TECH: Javascript, HTML, CSS

GAMEPLAY

Friendly Fire, at its core, is a space shooter game. However, it is unique in that the player can control 4 shooters, which can also point towards the central base the player is trying to protect. Players are incentivised to do so as there is a force field around the base in which time can be slowed for a certain duration. The shooters lie outside this force field, so they would have to point inwards to capitalise on the ‘slow time’ effect. While shooting inwards, there is the possibility that the player might shoot their own base, hence the game’s name ‘Friendly Fire’.

The game consists of 5 levels. Players will progress through the levels after destroying a certain number of meteors. For example, destroying 10 meteors will activate level 2, 20 meteors will activate level 3 and so on. Users can also select the level via a menu on the left side. At each level, an additional challenge is presented to the players. At level one random yellow meteors are spawned on any side of the screen and fly across to the other side. They do not gravitate towards the base. At level two both the base and the slow time zone began to expand and contract, making it harder to aim. At level 3, a large purple meteor that explodes when shot is introduced. This meteor splits into 2 to 4 fragments that burst out in different directions when shot. At level 4, a small blue-homing meteor that flies straight towards the base is introduced. Users have to quickly eliminate this meteor as it will definitely hit the base otherwise. At level 5 a green ‘shadow’ meteor is introduced, which fades away for a while then reappears.

The gameplay area has been expanded to encompass the entire page to maximise the experience. A space video loops in the background, making it seem like the ship is flying into the screen. Music and sound effects can be toggled on and off. A healthbar and slowtime bar are displayed at the bottom of the screen along with a counter which keeps track of the number of meteors destroyed.

CONTROLS

The game is controlled using 5 keys and a mouse. W, A, S and D control which shooter is active, spacebar activates and deactivates the slow time effect, and the mouse is used to aim and shoot. Users lose life every time a meteor hits their base, or when they shoot their own base. Friendly fire causes 5 damage. Small meteors cause 10 damage while the large purple meteors cause 20. The speed and size of meteors are somewhat random, but there is a correlation between speed and size; smaller meteors travel faster. The shooting speed has also been limited to 10 shots per second, to prevent overloading the computations.