Beam Me Up was the game that I worked on when I started my internship at Super Soul Studio. The game was set in the distant future, wherein aliens had conquered the earth and now used it as a playground for their personal arena matches. Each player controls a single combatant, a UFO equipped with a tractor beam that could pull objects toward the UFO or to fire them away with great force. Your goal was to survive in a high-chaos environment where each combatant is launching building debris, cars, and whatever else they can find in the world at each other. Destroying bits of the world (and other combatants) earns you money, which could be used to purchase modifications for your UFO.
During my internship, I designed and implemented new combat mechanics surrounding the nature of the tractor beam. This included creating and iterating on various ways of moving objects to find something that made some inherent sense to the player while allowing them to act as agents of chaos. To enhance the feeling of a highly chaotic environment, I created destructible environments. Players were encouraged to break buildings to create new chunks of debris to throw at their opponents, which had the potential to cause collateral damage and create additional debris. As the game progresses, players were flinging burning cars, steel girders, and chunks of road at each other.
After my 6-month internship was completed, I was hired on to Super Soul Studio as a full time Programmer and Designer. Unfortunately, the director of the studio decided it best to focus on more immediate contract work and this game was put on ice indefinitely.