Michael Cooper | Fragile Equilibrium

https://fragileequilibrium.net/
https://www.facebook.com/fragileeq

Project Role:

Lead Gameplay Programmer / Level Designer

Project Description:

Fragile Equilibrium is a game that uses side-scrolling shoot-em Up mechanics to deliver a message about facing up to one mortality. As the player fights enemies approaching from the right side of the screen, the world itself breaks apart from the left.

Fragile Equilibrium was made in Unity and launched on Xbox, Steam, and Itch.io. Developed at Rochester Institute of Technology as part of MAGIC Spell Studios, the project was meant to mimic the process of a real-world studio. The team-sized varied in sized as members graduated, fluctuating from over 12+ to around five active members. I was there at the start of the project, originally as a programmer. By the end of the project, I was the lead developer and handling most of the level design.

My Contributions:

I developed the systems for the level sequence, enemy behaviors, weapon behaviors, boss battles, screen shattering, and effects. I implemented other gameplay elements like the crystals that fire beams when shot by a player or enemy and the lantern bombs. I worked directly with programmers, designers, artists, and music composers on implementing their works. I also developed tools for the designers to use when created levels.

Once our main level designer graduated, I took up his responsibilities and implemented three of the four levels in the game. The process involved developing better tools that allowed me to balance design and development work.

I ported the game to the Xbox One, making sure it passed Microsoft's certification.

Boss Battles:

I worked very closely with our lead artist, Chris Robinson, to implement the bosses. We wanted the bosses to be difficult and cinematic yet still comprehensible to the player. This meant creating a system where we could precisely control the boss's attack pattern and animations while synchronizing it with regular enemy spawns.

We made extensive use of Unity's timeline feature. It enabled us to run code and animations as clips on a timeline. Each attack a boss could make was its own timeline. To make the boss's attacks, individual weapons attached to the boss's model were controlled through these clips. I developed several types of clips including one where the weapon angle was controlled through a curve. Other clips would control animations and the positioning of the boss. Timelines made it easy to develop new types of attacks as the needs come up, including articulated arms and talons.