DuoQ
DuoQ is my most recent and proudest project, created as the capstone for my Master’s in Computer Science (Game Development) at USC. I collaborated with a 30+ member interdisciplinary team of programmers, designers, artists, and producers. The game received a SAGE award for its innovative use of technology.
DuoQ is a first-person puzzle shooter built in Unreal Engine 5. It is designed as a co-op experience but played in single-player, with the partner being an AI companion named Tala. Players can speak to Tala through a microphone, and a large language model interprets the player’s speech to trigger in-game commands.
This was also the first game I contributed to that released publicly on a major platform, which made me incredibly proud to see our work reach a wider audience.
My Role: Gameplay Engineer
Implemented the health, shield, and damage systems for both the player, Tala, and enemies.
Developed the Combat Manager, coordinating enemy behavior during encounters and controlling how enemies engaged with the player and Tala.
Built the stun system to manage temporary disable states for enemies.
Collaborated closely with the design team, translating design spec sheets into working gameplay systems.
Assisted with player and enemy animations through Unreal Engine’s animation state machines.
Prototyped additional features, including a vortex ability and a multi-stage mini-boss (cut from the final release).
Takeaways
My first Unreal Engine project, which gave me hands-on experience in both Blueprints and C++.
Strengthened my ability to collaborate across disciplines, especially by implementing systems directly from design specifications.
Gained valuable insight into shipping a game publicly and contributing to a large, award-winning team project.
Links
DuoQ Trailer
