Mech Head

Twin-Stick Arcade Shooter (2024)

Mech Head is a twin stick arcade shooter, created by The University of Staffordshire's in house game development studio.
I was the Technical lead in charge of optimising and refactoring the code primarily into C++ to ensure it's future release on steam would run smoothly. This project was a great opportunity for myself to manage a team of programmers whilst learning to manage the GitHub repository which had over 30 contributors throughout my time managing.


  • Team Size: 30+ People
  • Role(s): Technical Lead & Lead Programmer
  • Development Time: 6 Weeks
  • Primary Contributions: Core Systems, Game Loop, Sorurce Control

    • Teaser Trailer

    GitHub Management

    I was in charge of source control for Mech Head (2024), creating branch structure and managing workflow.
    In managing the GitHub I was responsible for ~30 Contributors to the repository. This was achieved by establishing a feature branch structure, managing issues with merge conflicts, and ensuring that daily builds were avaliable after the refactor for testing purposes.
    In the short time we had over 700 commits in the 6 weeks and minimal issues with merging.

    Abilities

    Mech Head Features 12 Abilities which can be used for offensive or defensive purposes, a majority of these were programmed by myself, below are my favourites:

  • Barnabus (Turret) - Places a turret that shoots enemeies
  • The Mine - Places a timed landmine that will explode
  • Dome & Field Shields - Prevents enemies from shooting the player
  • Corruption Grenade - Converts Enemies

    • Mech Customisation

    Our goal as the programming team was to make the game expansive for designers so that they could change values for weapons, customise enemy value and appearances all without needing to enter the blueprints, but instead using Data Assets which can be fed into an object. This ended up being useful for a future character customisation menu which just needs UI linking up. Due to Time constraints this wasnt completed in this year of 1UP