All work
Southern Shakedown cover. A silhouetted figure holding a gun and a cricket bat stands beneath a damaged, cel-shaded apartment tower at dusk.

Game 05 · Unity · 3D art

Southern Shakedown

A game byJoshua Moonsamy, Ndzalama Khosa, and Kian Smith

Synopsis

Southern Shakedown is a first-person shooter. A crime syndicate has hijacked a South African apartment building, and the police will not act. You play a lone vigilante who takes the building back one floor at a time.

Each floor is a level. You start with only a pistol and a little ammo, loot weapons from fallen enemies, and carry them up to the next floor: rifles, shotguns, and a cricket bat. Walls can be broken to open new paths, explosive barrels can be turned on enemies, and bosses wait on later floors. A timer runs on every floor, and dying sends you back to the start with nothing.

The game looks at real problems in South African communities: building hijackings, organised crime, gun violence, and losing faith in the justice system. A cel-shaded art style keeps it from glorifying the violence. It draws on Hotline Miami and Max Payne.

Project brief

Southern Shakedown was our year-long work-integrated learning project, under the theme Games for Community Engagement. The game had to raise awareness of a real social problem and build empathy for the communities it affects.

First semester, design. We researched a social problem, proposed two game ideas, picked one, and wrote a high concept for it, then built a first prototype.

Second semester, development. We turned that design into a playable 3D game in stages:

  • A core mechanics prototype, written with good object-oriented practice, using models and assets we made ourselves or royalty-free ones
  • A tutorial level that teaches the game through play rather than instructions, with a basic interface, animations, and the core game systems
  • A complete single-level game with a clear start and end that deals with the community problem through its gameplay
  • A release on itch.io that earned a community score

My role

I worked on the game’s 3D art:

  • Two character prefabs, modelled in 3ds Max
  • Textures for those characters and for props such as clocks, boxes, speakers, and shelves, painted in Krita
  • Damaged-looking assets with new materials, to show the wear on a hijacked building
  • Some of the environment modelling

Ndzalama Khosa and Kian Smith built the rest of the game.

Tools

  • Unity 6
  • 3ds Max
  • Krita
  • Git and GitHub
  • itch.io

Reception

Rated 4.7 out of 5 from 10 ratings on itch.io. Players praised the premise, the sense of progression, and the new weapons.

Process

A low-poly character model in 3ds Max wearing an orange and white striped shirt, blue jeans, a belt, and brown boots.
Character model, 3ds Max One of the two characters I modelled and textured for the game.
A wooden chair model with a cracked backrest, chipped edges, and stained, worn texturing.
Damaged prop A chair with cracks, chips, and stains, one of the worn props that show the neglect inside a hijacked building.
A grid of twelve Krita texture files for alarm clocks, a digital clock, boxes, speakers, a shelf, and wall clocks, each with painted grime and wear.
Textures, Krita Some of the textures I painted in Krita for the props, including the clocks, boxes, speakers, and shelf. Each has hand-painted grime and wear.