Posts from my blog – Darryl Spratt's Design Portfolio

Graphite artwork

February 20, 2023February 21, 2023

I’ve been getting back into graphite drawing after years of not drawing much at all and I’d like to share a couple that I’ve completed recently, both were made from reference photos. This beach one is actually the first graphite drawing I’ve made in over a decade, so I was a bit concerned going into it that I would have lost the skill and initially chose it just as an exercise to see where I was at. Thankfully, just after a couple hours, it felt like I was picking up right where I left off and I decided to make…

Expanding gameplay upon the core

January 24, 2023January 24, 2023

Since my last update of my endless runner game, I expanded the main mechanics with a charge ability to smash through new breakable boxes spawned on top of the platforms, and added an automatic slowdown ability to help with survivability. I also created an editor function in Unreal to assist me in visualizing the spawn sequences of the platforms as the complexity of designing them increased. A bunch of new visuals and sound effects were finally added to enhance the experience of the game. Starting with a breakable box prototype I introduced the breakable boxes in my game to provide…

A unique elevator loader

August 8, 2022August 8, 2022

One of the core features of my experimental first-person adventure puzzle game that I’m developing is a world loading mechanic that uses an elevator as the main hub. This is the first feature that I’ve implemented to test how it works since it’s quite central to the overall experience. A simple level loader may not seem that interesting or important at first, but this elevator is a bit different than the typical ones that you’d see in a game…

Controlled randomness in endless runners

July 14, 2022January 24, 2023

I’ve been working on an endless runner in Unreal where the main control utilizes the rotation of a mouse scroll wheel or touch-drag movement to move platforms and bridge your character through the course. One thing I noticed right away through prototyping was that true randomness was not fun at all and just seemed hectic and frustrating while also being hard to calculate the possible paths that the player can accomplish. I’d never want the player to feel like there was no way to continue in their run because a block was impossibly far, that’s a great way to get…

Shimmerfall Springs postmortem

July 4, 2022

A postmortem of my Skyrim level, where I explore what went right and what went wrong, while thinking of solutions to do better next time. I get into utilizing NPCs to give character to the level, focusing on player choice from different class play styles to emergent choices, how I learned from Bethesda’s levels to improve my quality, and the various ways I achieved my storytelling goals. I then get into some challenges I faced, such as scripting the boss battle, optimization issues, and a frustrating one for the players: leaving the level on a cliffhanger.

New brand identity & site

June 29, 2022June 30, 2022

It has been a while since I’ve updated my website, so I am quite exited to finally unveil my new logo and website. I’ve been itching to have my own logo for a while and designing for yourself is a challenging task. This has been something I’ve been slowly building upon overtime and have finally settled with a meaningful design that I’m proud of. With the new logo comes a site that pays homage to some features of my old one, such as the colours, but also brings in some much needed modern features, like supporting different media screens. I…

Rise is out!

October 16, 2015June 29, 2022

I’m very excited to announce that Rise: Battle Lines is set to release on October 19 on Steam! Rise: Battle Lines has come a long way since the last time I posted about it here with improved gameplay, environment, UI and more great music and SFX. Please check out the Steam game page and the game trailer! Our game may be in early access but it’s ready to go and play and is in a proper late beta state. During early access, we are aiming to add extra features to what we already have and polish/improve things to give an…

Archmage Rises’ new logo

September 4, 2014June 29, 2022

While Defiance Games was quite happy with the original logo I created for them of Archmage Rises, they eventually found that the logo didn’t have a “hardcore” enough feeling to it. We decided that the frame and using a slab-like typeface were the prime causes of the issue, so we took it in a new direction. I focused on simplicity and stylization of the text. The shattering and overpowering staff works as an underline while giving a hint of the theme of the game: will you become a powerful mage or fall apart on your journey?

Archmage Rises logo

March 4, 2014June 7, 2022

Defiance Games approached me again to make a new logo for a new game. This game is called Archmage Rises, which is a throwback to the classic D&D style RPG games with modern random world simulation features. Since magic was a big part of the game, a main goal was to convey that through texture around the text and small features in the border. I provided a few different styles and he instantly loved the version that is most similar to what you see here.

Rise UI

October 20, 2013June 7, 2022

The Secret Games Company welcomed me into their team to help them create the UI for Rise: Battle Lines, a Unity 3D game that utilizes NGUI. I needed to create designs that worked with some of NGUI’s features, such as scalable panels using NGUI’s sliced sprite feature. They already had a basic UI in the works and needed me to complete it visually. After our programmer finished implementing the UI screens and functions, they tasked me to work on the UI in Unity, doing things like adding new features, fixing bugs or tweaking the design. It has been a great…

Storybook app icon

June 23, 2013June 7, 2022

A few months ago, I worked with Mirthwerx to create this icon for their new storybook app. Mirthwerx created “A is for App” for parents in the tech industry that wanted to share a bit about their work to their children while reading the book. The icon communicates that idea by having the ABC letters pop out of a tablet device, but it still keeps the child theme that their book targets. I found making the border of the icon a tablet device really helped bring everything together without it looking cluttered or loosing focus. Check out their app landing…

Inventory UI

March 26, 2013June 6, 2022

This is an inventory UI concept that I based on one of my own games I work part time on. My goal for it visually was to make it have a backpack look to convey the feeling that you are searching for items in your own backpack. The visual theme also sparked ideas for the belt tabs and the zipper scrollbar. I also decided to make everything that is clickable have traces of gold and teal in their color scheme. This would help give guides for navigation, which combats the issue of a lot of detail potentially being distracting. I…