Teeth

TEETH FULL GAME

Full Vertical Slice Gameplay Above

Annihilate toothy abominations with a gnawing hunger in a nightmarish 2.5D hack-and-slash game. Hoard their teeth to fuel your rage, traversing the endless dark-domain created by an omnipotent overseer. Destroy, absorb, and thrive until nothing remains.

Article By Andrew King Discussing Teeth and the other Academy of art Game

Teeth is a completely student made game that started in Summer of 2023 and it was shown off at GDC 2024 as well as PAX East.

I was the sole developer for the project and built it entirely in UE5

 It ended up winning the annual Academy of Art University Spring Show 2024 game department best game overall. 

For this project I wore many hats, I was a game designer, game systems and level designer, and 2D Illustrator/Animator.

DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE

Teeth started out as a simple GDD provided by our head instructor. I started brainstorming and planning immediately, emphasizing a simple core gameplay loop that could be polished and fit the original high concept:

"2D, 32 bit pixelated art

Mostly black and white grayscale.

Splashes of color for damage, story highlights, attacks.

Room to Room dungeon type levels. Simple shapes with hazards to accent level layout and combat (a little bit like Hades)

Transitions to rooms are story, atmosphere, hallways/rooms/corridors with teeth and audio setting the next stage."

The image above was the idea that started it all. Created by our instructor years ago which helped further set the tone and development of the project.

“Move, dodge, slash, slash….dodge…slash slash slash…dodge dodge…line up shot hold to load and shoot. dodge dodge slash slash slash.”

This was the core gameplay I wanted to emphasize through and through. I was not going to over-design and go out of scope. I wanted it to be simple, engaging, and concise to be as polished as possible.

Early brainstorming example showing enemies and room ideas

Early room layout design. Heavily inspired by other 2.5 D hack and slash games.

THE FIRST MILESTONE SUMMER 2023

This was my first working prototype, using temp art assets and scripted entirely by me. Room layouts and enemy designs were also temp. At this point the core gameplay vision was starting to manifest and it was almost time to start the arduous process of creating an art asset pipeline to replace everything and continue to refine the game and hone in scope.

To talk briefly about art assets. I created a style guide as a base with a simple enemy(spike trap). Then just went down my spreadsheet of enemies I wanted to create. I spent lots of time coming up with the designs ahead of time so it was just a matter of seperating them into layers and animating all via photoshop. I am very familiar with the genre and style and was inspired by games like Castle Crashers, Don't Starve, and Plants vs Zombies.

THE SECOND MILESTONE FALL 2023

This was my second major milestone for the project. I was only around 6 weeks away from GDC 2024 and needed to replace almost all of the temporary art assets and further refine gameplay. There was tons of extra polish needed but after a couple weeks I made it just in time for GDC and had extremely good reception with the project.

THE FINAL MILESTONE SPRING 2024

Once again here is the final vertical slice video showcasing the entire game. The project was a large pursuit with lots of challenges to overcome but thanks to the support of my friends and instructors I was able to have the final product turn out as is.

Thank you

If you are interested in seeing more of my work or contacting me for future endeavors feel free to message me through artstation or linkedin which can be found at this link tree.

I am currently a university student and am estimated to Graduate in Fall of 2024 this year around late December.

https://linktr.ee/karst.jordanfridie