SEVA ZAKHARENKO
Side projects
& prototypes
Welcome! Here you will find all of the game-related side projects and prototypes I have ever worked on. Most of my older works were developed in the Source engine, while more recent projects were developed in Unity. Click on the image or the [LINK] to learn more about a project!
MISCELLANEOUS WORD APPS
During the development of Word Dungeons, I took a couple breaks here and there to play other word games. I particularly enjoy the challenge of Letterboxed, but I also enjoy Wordle too. Since I am not particularly good at either, I decided to create two tools to help me suck slightly less at both. Wordle Assistant is a tool that helps narrow down what the current day's Wordle solution could be, it's less helpful than I thought, but was still fun to develop. Betterboxed is just Letterboxed from NYT but with added features. Click the link to find out more!
SPACE BUGS 65
Star Fox 64 was one of my favorite games growing up. Unfortunately, despite how fun it was, there was never another game quite like it (Star Fox Zero was okay, but that's just my opinion). So I decided to take matters into my own hands, and see if I could make a prototype for a Star Fox-like game. My prototype only features the first roughly third of the 'Training' mission from the original game, and is missing a few other features. But I did make some adjustments too! Check the link for more!
NUMBERDLE
It's like Wordle, but you have to guess a number sequence. How long? That's up to you! How many attempts do you have? Also up to you! It's a very simple game, check it out in the link below.
DESCENSION
'Ascension' was a mod I had worked on for several years, but it proved to be much more of an ambitious project than I had initially thought. I decided instead of continuing to put off completing the project, I would rip some of the more exciting missions out and turn them into their own standalone games. Descension is the first one of these. The gameplay loop is based off of the popular Five Nights at Freddy's series, but features other survival horror elements, a story, and silly voice lines.
ZAM's RITUAL DEFENSE
Zam's Ritual Defense is a Tower Defense style game with a twist. In this game, the player must defend Zam from waves of enemies using various traps, upgrades and allies. Unlike a traditional tower defense, however, the player has access to the ultimate weapon: themselves. With this unique first-person perspective comes a fresh take on Tower Defense. Instead of relying primarily on static defense to achieve victory, the player must explore the dungeon to find upgrades, loot, and new opportunities for traps.
Zam's Ritual Defense is built within the Source Engine as a map for Half-Life 2. The game also features some custom textures / assets and an original soundtrack.
BRICKTRIS - DYNAMIC MUSIc
After completing the main campaign in “Brek,” my next project was to develop an arcade style mini-game to add replayability to the base game. While the gameplay itself was naturally important for this project, the primary focus was on the sound design and music. My goal was to make an arcade style game that lasts roughly five to ten minutes per attempt and features handmade dynamic music.
The game features custom sound effects that are synchronized to the tempo of the music, and original music that grows more and more intense as the player progresses through a round.
Brek - RE-IMAGINING A CLASSIC
Brek was my first attempt at developing a game to completion from scratch. I played a lot of brick breaker games as a kid and felt like the brick breaker genre had lost innovation and slowly vanished. I wanted to re-imagine this fading genre with concepts from all of my favorite modern games. This project had a twofold purpose. First and foremost, I wanted to get the experience of creating a game from start to finish. Second, I wanted to take an existing game design and attempt to modernize and improve upon it.
This game features a campaign mode with over 20 unique levels, as well as a bonus Tetris-style arcade mode.
LEVEL DESIGN ARCHIVES
I have been designing levels for the Source Engine since 2006. Throughout my experience, I've designed levels for Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Counter-Strike, Half-Life 2 and its episodes, and other mods. The archive contains some works I've released to the public, as well as some levels I've designed for a Half-Life 2 mod called The Ascension.
FOREST DUNGEON
Forest Dungeon is a level inspired by classic 3D Zelda games. The goal of this project was to design a fully fleshed out dungeon full of puzzles, enemies, bosses and loot. My primary focus was to design this dungeon as a tutorial - one that teaches the player several gameplay mechanics without explaining them directly. This dungeon features several unique enemies designed using clever manipulation of world geometry, existing assets, and logic entities.
Forest Dungeon is built within the Source Engine as a map for the Half-LIfe 2 mod "The Ascension"