Destructonaut
The Game
Destructonaut is the first game from Smashbyte Studios. It's aimed towards mobile platforms - iOS and Android - and is an endless runner set on a space station that is slowly being destroyed. You play as a 'Destructonaut'; an engineer trained in the art of dismantling - often explosively - large constructs in space. Dodge laser grids, giant fans, and proximity mines as you try to outrun the explosion. Collecting the prized 'pink goo' will enable you to acquire new suits and characters, including Ruzki the Cosmonaut, Ken the daredevil and Rusty the robot.
Codename: Astronut
For quite a while the name of this project was Codename: Astronut, as it was difficult finding a name that hadn't already been taken in the iOS and Android App stores. That said, my personal take on the name was 'The Grand Adventures of Doopy Boop Part One: The Exploding Space Donut'...
This Video was made in June '17 - midway through development - for display on the Cause A Stir website; a funding initiative that awarded ten teams one thousand dollars (Australian) each. Entrants ranged from costume designers and barbers through to independent film and game studios. Destructonaut was one of the ten chosen projects to receive the award.
Ships
Along with modelling the characters, I was also responsible for making some of the spacecraft that would be passing by in the background. One particular segment of gameplay sees the ships crash through the space station, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake for the Destructonaut to hopefully avoid.
Characters
As Smashbyte's character modeler, rigger and animator, it fell to me to create the various destructonauts. The initial three (pictured at the front of the pack) were designed to be the characters a player could choose at the beginning of the game. These three included a big, beefy guy, a more lithe and curvy feminine figure and an androgynous individual who ended up being used for all the testing and advertising. Behind those three in the next row from left to right are 'Totally not Master Chief', Rusty and Ruzki while in the back row stand Ken, Sam and Dudley. The latter two were designed initially for a release around Independance Day / Canada Day, but as the development went on we decided to hold them back for 2018.
