Cyrah's Ascent | Bennett Ewanchyna

GAME CONCEPT

Cyrah’s Ascent is a 3D ranged action combat game that focuses on giving the player plenty of mobility options and ranged, magical attacks to deal with the Laust, chaotic creatures who have wiped out her village. Cyrah must utilize these abilities to destroy the source of their power in hopes to bring peace to the land.

TRAILER

THE PROJECT

Cyrah's Ascent has been developed by team Coffee Break at DigiPen Institute of Technology from Fall 2020-Winter 2021. The game can be downloaded from the DigiPen Game Gallery, and will shortly be downloadable from Steam.

On Coffee Break, I had the role of Tech Lead, and Gameplay/Audio/VFX programmer. As the Tech Lead, I was responsible for supporting all pipelines into the engine, overseeing the tech team by assigning tasks, managing builds for the game, and being the main point of content for technical development.

For Cyrah's Ascent, we have been using Unreal Engine 4 in a combined Blueprint and C++ project. We started out the project almost completely in Blueprints for faster prototyping, and have been slowly converting to C++ for efficiency.

GAMEPLAY

ANIMATIONS

Player Animations

Implemented all player animations into engine to blend seamlessly with combat and movement systems. Bones are dynamically rotated in gameplay to help visuals in combat, and help transitions. Includes different rotations facing modes for attacking and platforming, as well as turning in place

Enemy Animations

Implemented all enemy animations into engine. Animations are driven by our AI system, which allows for modification of attacks in a component based approach. Enemy bones are dynamically rotated in combat to face the player or their attack direction.

VFX

Ground Cracks

Procedurally made ground crack textures in Substance Designer. Implemented in Unreal Engine 4 with complete control over visuals of the cracks. Used for attack impacts

Water

Helped develop the water shader used for "Cyrah's Ascent", including a fully instance editable interface for controlling how the water looks. The water has corresponding sound effects, and VFX when walking through

Foliage

Developed the shader for foliage and wind in "Cyrah's Ascent". All foliage is fully customizable in color and movement. Foliage responds to movement from the player, and dithers smoothly when in front of the camera

Bennett Ewanchyna

GAME CONCEPT

TRAILER

THE PROJECT

GAMEPLAY

ANIMATIONS

Player Animations

Implemented all player animations into engine to blend seamlessly with combat and movement systems. Bones are dynamically rotated in gameplay to help visuals in combat, and help transitions. Includes different rotations facing modes for attacking and platforming, as well as turning in place

Enemy Animations

Implemented all enemy animations into engine. Animations are driven by our AI system, which allows for modification of attacks in a component based approach. Enemy bones are dynamically rotated in combat to face the player or their attack direction.

VFX

Ground Cracks

Procedurally made ground crack textures in Substance Designer. Implemented in Unreal Engine 4 with complete control over visuals of the cracks. Used for attack impacts

Water

Helped develop the water shader used for "Cyrah's Ascent", including a fully instance editable interface for controlling how the water looks. The water has corresponding sound effects, and VFX when walking through

Foliage

Developed the shader for foliage and wind in "Cyrah's Ascent". All foliage is fully customizable in color and movement. Foliage responds to movement from the player, and dithers smoothly when in front of the camera

Misc.

CINEMATICS

Power Up

Implemented cinematic and VFX for power up intro cinematic

Enemy Intro ( Reaper)

Implemented cinematic and animations to introduce the first enemy

Enemy Intro (Spitter)

Implemented introduction cinematic for ranged enemy intro

Mini-Boss

Helped with the technical and audio implementation for Elder Reaper mini-boss