GARRICK HO
Selected Game Design & Artistic Works University of California, Berkeley College of Environmental Design
garrickho@berkeley.edu 415-971-8404 https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrick-ho/ garrickho.com
Contact
Education University of California, Berkeley, CA College of Environmental Design Bachelor of Arts in Architecture 2016-2020 2019-2020 CED Circus Nominee Noll & Tam Architects, Berkeley, CA Intern Architect 2019 DScheme Studios, San Francisco, CA Intern Architect 2017-2018 Autodesk Autocad Revit Adobe Photoshop Illustrator Indesign Lightroom Rhino 3D + VRay Google Sketchup Lumion Blender 2
Experience
Qualifications
Table of Contents Game Level Design Parasite
GDD @ Berkeley 2020 4-15
Environment Design Canyon
UC Berkeley CED Arch 100D 2020 16-17 Arch UC Berkeley CED Arch 100D 2020 18-19 Flora UC Berkeley CED Arch 100D 2020 20-21 Hive UC Berkeley CED Arch 100D 2020 22-23
Concept Design Forest Waystation
UC Berkeley CED Arch 100D 2020 24-27 3
Parasite
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Parasite is a 2d metroidvania platformer game I designed in collaboration with a team of programmers and artists from Berkeley GDD.
The gameworld has 5 distinct areas: -Orange: a beginning tutorial laborator for teaching basics -Yellow: a central travel hub that connects all the areas
The game revolves around an alian parasite that is
-Blue: the unstable frozen tundra-like wind tunnels
captured by the military after it crash lands on Earth and
-Red: the scorching and explosive magma caves
must escape from captivity in an underground
-Green: the overgrown and unwelcoming living jungle
military labyrinth. The game takes inspiration from games like Metroid Fusion, Hollow Knight, Shovel Knight, and Steamworld Dig 2. The primary game mechanic is that our protagonist, the parasite, can’t directly attach enemies. Instead it can utilize its unique ability to possess enemies and use their skills and movement to advance through the world and protect itself. The gameplay was designed to be linear yet quick and fluid at some points with light puzzle aspects while other sections are large dungeons that test you on your skills and reactions. Areas vary between linear and semi-open world with different routes to explore. Besides the 2 enemy characters that exist in every area, each individual area introduces 2 new enemies that offer region-unique movement, damage, and environmental manipulation skills to create diverse gameplay options. The goal is to reach 3 keys at the end of each biome to unlock the exit to freedom. 5
Tutorial & Central Hub
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The Tutorial and Central Hub areas are the first 2 areas the player will encounter. The Tutorial is a linear path that will teach basic controls and will introduce the player to two common
Exit Tutorial
enemies, the scientist and security guard, and teach about the basic puzzle, attack and movement elements of the game. This area introduces moving platforms, pressure sensitive platforms, transportation air vents, and doors that require a key to unlock. The placement of each room should teach the player about the boundaries of their movement and let them practice taking over enemies.
To Tundra
After completing the tutorial, the player is thrust into the Central Hub where they either ideally disover the exit and are introduced to the primary challenge of
To Forest
finding the keys to unlock the exit or can travel down into the facility and must choose between 1 of 3 paths leading them to a new area. When the player chooses to enter a main area, they cannot go back to the central hub until they complete the area.
To Magma
Each of the main areas are designed to lead into whichever next area the player wants to go without backtracking.
Tunnels between Areas 7
Tundra Tunnels
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Exit
The Tundra Tunnels is an icy wasteland set in the tight
Wind Tunnels
corridors of the air filtration systems of the facility. The level introduces 2 enemies: a guard with an ice gun and a large ice bison. With the new ice guard, you can freeze moving platforms that are otherwise not accessible and freeze enemies in place to use them to boost yourself higher. With the new ice bison, you can smash through
Tundra Key
walls and enemies. The more momentum you gain, the more unstoppable you become and the less damage you
Entrance
take from enemies. New environmental hazards include platoforms that need to be frozen to be accessible and electrical wires that shock and kill whoever touch them. The level begins as a set of linear tunnels but evolves into Final Cavern
a large cavern with 3 seperate paths required for completion to unlock the way out. The final level incorporates varied horizontality and verticality to create a percarious and unstable area, including an area consisting of only moving platforms to direct you to safety, an area with targets you must hit with projectiles, and a destructive path through stone walls, enemy barriers, and enemies themselves.
Final Cavern
This level was designed to have both enemy ai and environmental challenges but should fele satisfying to traverse the are after mastering the game mechanics.
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Overgrowth Forest
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The Overgrowth Forest is a inhospitable and prickly
Final Tree Trunk
Forest Key
Exit
jungle that has overtaken the facility’s greenhouse. The level introduces 2 enemies: a guard with a lasso whip and a nimble tree lizard. The new lasso guard can hang on to moving conveyer belts to move upwards or sideways rapidly and also whip enemies to bring them closer to you and Entrance
damage them at the same time. WIth the new tree lizard, you can dash off sticky surfaces and move at a greater speed than other enemies. As the lizard you cannot directly attack enemies but wherever you land a pool of acid forms so you can try to predict where enemies will land. New environmental hazards include spiked balls that move in circular paths and spiked walls are instantly kill any who touch them. The level begins as a series of verticle shafts and twisting corridors that lead to a large room centered around a massive tree trunk with 5 seperate areas involving manuevering through harsh environmental puzzles with accuracy and grace. There are certain areas where the jumping puzzles become very difficult and require precise movement but these areas can be skipped if you figure out another way up the tree trunk. This level was designed to consist of environmental hazards and movement puzzles but should feel like the human enemies are not as dangerous as the forest itself.
Final Tree Trunk 11
Magma Caves
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The Magma Caves are a series of interconnected caves and tunnels below the facility’s research center that have
Entrance
been overtaken by lava after a series of earthquakes that have made the caves malleable. The level introduces 2 enemies: a guard with a water gun
Exit
and a small fire bat. The new water guard can use his
Entrance to Caves
water gun to put out fires, keep enemies at bay, or propel further into the air. With the new fire bat, you can temporarily float through the air and eject yourself towards cracked boulders and walls. New environmental hazards include raging fires that need to be put out, deadly lava pools that drip lava below and hives that spew out fire bats unless destroyed.
Magma Key
The level begins as you progress through a linear path through the destroyed remains of laboratories and the intersecting cave system before reaching a final open cavern. The cavern involves manuevering through dripping lava, raging fires, and persistent fire bats. The cave composes of avoiding confrontation with enemies and utilizing the environment and enemies to reach the exit. This level was designed to consist of environmental
Final Cavern
hazards that restrict you from directly confronting enemies and instead forcing you to flee most encounter and consider the pros and cons of staying and fighting.
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Shown here are some of the finished art assets for the main parasite (above), the scientist (side), the security guard (side), ice guard (side), and a random cat npc that will occasionally show up around the world. (note: the characters shown above are not to scale.) The other characters not included here are the water guard, ice bison, tree lizard, and fire bat. Some characters that were cut from the game include a hulked out scientist that can shatter walls, K9 support dogs that lead security guards to your location, ice worms that dig through the ground, flaming boulder monsters that roll through lava, and an aracnid that used her webbing to swing from place to place. 15
Canyon
Canyon Illustration
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This project explores workflows for producing artificial landscapes and environments using a mixture of AI techniques. These include: generative adversarial networks (Artbreeder), world building tools (Blender and Rhino), and hand-drawn illustrations. By these means, we identify potential unexpected tensions and affordances that arise between these tools that can be leveraged into novel designs. A series of alien biomes and imaginary landscapes are thereby produced, expressed as an isometric interpretation of an AI-generated perspective scene. In this way, in a visual call-and-response structure, each Artbreeder landscape acts as a “creative prompt� for the design of imaginary
Artbreeder Image
world in isometric. The artbreeder images inspired a narrative about fronterism, with a group of cowboys and native american travelers exploring the alien wildlands. The landscape presented on the left is Canyon, characterized by large flat maroon flats penetrated by steep canyons and surrounded by shallow swamp. My interpretion of the artbreeder image was that of a canyon with harsh sunlight that create stark shadows and canyon walls carved by the water over time. In this scene, a group of travelers scout the surrounding maze-like area, desperate to establish their bearings.
Blender/Rhino Model Base
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Arch
Arch Illustration
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The landscape presented on the left is Arch, characterized by a series of 4 large arches that form a tunnel surrounded by a rock desert outpost with large organic spikes rising out of the ground. This Artbreeder image was more abstract than Canyon so my inspiration for this image was based on the central arch form, the spikes that rise out of the ground, and my intepretations of the corrolations between the colors and form. In this scene, a group of native american travelers have arrived at the end of the tunnel and are resting after their journey. However, they will be soon met by a lone native american scout chased by a group of agrresive cowboys, due to land disputes.
Artbreeder Image
It seems even in thie foreign land, various groups of power have risen and are in conflict over the right to settle the land.
Blender/Rhino Model Base
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Flora
Flora Illustration
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The landscape presented on the left is Flora, characterized by a large grassy plains bordering a dense bioluminscent forest. This Artbreeder image was chaotic and had a lot of different elements all happening at once. While I clearly saw a forest, intepreting this scene in isometric would be difficult as displaying all the detail while incorporating the detailed human figures would be a challenge. As such, I chose to illustrate the conditions at the edge of the forest, questioning what existed beyond the boundaries of the forest rather than what the forest itself was. In this scene, a lone native american traveler has been traversing the grassy oceans and has norw arrived at
Artbreeder Image
the flora jungle. His travels have been long but finally he has arrived at the elusive jungle. It almost seems as if something about the forest beckons him to come closer, just one more step the forest says. Perhaps the forest is hiding a far more alluring but dangerous aspect than is visible at first glance.
Blender/Rhino Model Base
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Hive
Hive Illustration
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The landscape presented on the left is Hive, characterized a monolithic organic hive structure, enveloped by clusters of alien eggs emitting a bright yet eerie light, and surrounded by a singular path dominated by pools of acid water discharging hazy steam that blurs visibility. The artbreeder image displayed a large structure surrounding a bright light source amid a charred wasteland. I interpreted the image as having a fantastical ethereal quality of light and quickly pictured the idea of a bioluminescent hive. As the last in the series of illustrations, I wanted this illustration to demonstrate a quality of finality, that the journey embarked upon starting with canyons would
Artbreeder Image
end here, with a final confrontation with whatever resides within the hive. As our travelers approach the hive, they feel a sense of dread upon confronting the unknown within the ghastly organic fortress beyond.
Blender/Rhino Model Base
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The Forest Waypoint is a
Forest Waypoint
contemplative rest stop within a dense forest that beacons to weary travelers seeking refuge with a large inflated geometric sail that floats upon the wind. Through a process known as pix to pix, I was able to train an AI to recognize form by introducing it to hundreds of sample photos to train a brush that turns a simple line drawing into that very same form. Displayed on the right was my final proposal of the forest waypoint that is compiled of 10 different brushes. The seperate brushes don’t always mesh and those supposed inconveniences and tension give rise to unexpected design decisions and help further a dialogue between the possibilities of human & Section Cut
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computer collaborative drawing.
Geometric Corten Steel
Wooden Base
Fire
Wooden Veneer
Bush Blob
Glass Panel
Wood Quadpod
Wooden Fence
Tree
Steel Truss
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Early Rendition of Forest Waypoint
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Treehousse Variant
Render Base
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