Nomad

A platforming adventure game in a desolate world.

Nomad is a platforming adventure game where you are the last member of an alien race whose industrial conquests have decimated the entire planet. A once verdant grassland world turned to sand and stone. The player traverses the difficult terrain of the world using a damaged weapon called a Lancer, that was developed during the prime of the alien civilization. Uncovering the history of their people hidden throughout the canyons and deserts, the nomad encounters a massive creature called an Etherean. Suffering from infectious crystal growths on its hide, the player makes amends for past misdeeds by removing the crystals with their damaged Lancer.

Development

Myself and a few other individuals banded together under the studio name, Glass Cannon Games to make what is shown here. This project was created to fulfill our Junior Production course at Champlain College.

Initially when the project began, we had only a week to prototype the game mechanics. Then, we were given an additional two weeks to get the project in a presentable state before showcasing it to the entire Champlain game studio. The midmortem trailer you see above was the project of three weeks.

After midmortem, our game along with a few others were given the green-light to continue development and to add additional team members.

On this team, I served as the lead narrative and level designer. I worked extensively with the team artist and our lead producer to help visualize and provide context to this unique world.

Our leader producer and I co-wrote the entire premise of the world of Nomad. An alien race determined to make their fuel source last created a crystal pathogen that infected the Etherean beasts roaming the planet. The Ethereans were then killed en mass and their crystals were harvested to be refined for fuel. Killing the Ethereans had a severely detrimental effect on the planet’s ecosystem. Said ecosystem eventually collapsed and the alien civilization was wiped out along with it.

Thanks to the lancer, the player was able to explosively launch themselves into the air to traverse cliffs and gaps. In conjunction with this is the glider, which allowed players to continue to extend their air time. I made the level design work hand in hand with the mechanics, wide spaces and open air were plentiful so players could completely utilize their tools. The lancer movement and the environment would be continually iterated on to solve problems such as players leaving the map and not using the glider to any extent.

Along the path, I placed points of interests that would give players a hint or glimpse about the past history of the world. These narrative points came in the form of stone murals and could be found in various points across the map.