Taha Akbarally
Game Developer | Physicist
taha.akbarally@gmail.com
Hello!
I am a Game Developer with 4+ years of experience building a broad variety of games, from simple education focused games, casual puzzle games, and challenging platformers.
I have also built various tools such as UI Management Systems, Wavefunction Dungeon Generators, and 8-bit Synthesizers.
Languages:
C#, HLSL, Typescript, LUA, Python
Tools:
Unity, Godot, PyGame, Hammer Editor, Git, Photon, Mecanim, Shadergraph, Visual Effect Graph
Bringing danger with waves…
The focal point of this game was the dangerous- icky- blue goop. A little light that dynamically adjusts to the shape of the blue goop, and a ripple across it really pushes it from feeling lifeless to living.
Bringing life with wind…
Adding a little ebb and flow to the roof tapestry of these huts, as well as a little wind pushing the the curtain at the entrance back and forth— so much life.
Couple that with a little smoke, coming from the top of these wooden chimney- and voila.
In Blobbers, pieces on different layers need to communicate clearly what layer they are on as pieces on the same layer interact with each other.
By adding and removing faces, changing the vertical offset, and changing the outline, we can show what layers the piece is currently sitting on.
Colouring with palettes
Sometimes in a game, we want to have multiple versions while preserving flexibility of the base object.
By using a colour palette shader along with a couple textures, we can avoid having to repetitive work while still having a ton of variance.
The liminal space where the spirits live…
In Ghost In A Box, the game alternates between two states. These states: alive and dead.
Death needs to feel liminal. By adding a palette swap and an intense chromatic aberration effect, along with this ‘celeste-esque’ trail during movement, playing as the ghost feels very surreal
Bleeding colours together
In this game all about colour, where being the same colour as another object allows you to pass through it, I wanted a really rough sketch like aesthetic.
The Difference of Gaussians outline pass is the cherry on top, making the outline of objects conjoin with intersecting shapes, really selling the colours bleeding into one another
Taking pixelation to the extreme
Everyone knows the good old pixelation pass, but what about instead of using it as an aesthetic its used as an effect?
Get hit? Have the screen react with a crazy pixelation effect.
Bleeding colours together
Look at that grid of particles! Look at how they react to the player’s movement, and changes in state.
This was done by creating a grid of point masses, tied together by simulated springs which are pulled and pushed as the player moves around them, interpolating their colour based on their velocity.
Its amazing what a little bit of tween can do
Animation curves are a gift. We must use them wisely.
When creating paths, a little bit of bounce back at the end, a little easing acceleration, it all does so much to making entities feel like they have personality.