Echo's Escape

I am a Game Design and Programming Major, however, because we already had a dedicated designer and dedicated programmer on the team, I took on more of a producer roll. I was in charge of running meetings, leading the presentation pitch decks, and organizing documentation.  I also took on the role of a secondary designer and programmer where needed. I implemented any assets made by our artist into the game and programmed some of the main puzzle mechanics, allowing the programmer to focus on the primary movement and health systems.

One of the most important mechanics that I created was the main echolocation action. 

Any other object in the game can create a sound wave, it just has to specify the direction of the wave, the density of the particles, and the arc of the wave. The system I created will then create and arch of small, white particles and launch them in the specified direction. They will slowly fade over time. When they hit an object that can be lit up, they will light up that object based on the current strength of the particle, bounce off of it, and immediately lose a lot of strength. Once they fade completely, they disappear.

To make objects light up, the specified objects have two different sprites layered on top of each other: a lit version of the object and a silhouette. They also contain a value specifying how lit up they currently are. When an object is completely it up, the colored sprite is fully visible, hiding the silhouette. When an object is completely dark, the colored sprite is completely transparent, showing only the silhoutte. By lowering the opacity of the colored layers over time, objects appear to fade back to black after being hit by a sound wave.

The pufferfish bombs remain still until the player touches them. Once touched, they puff up, become permanently lit and a timer starts. The player then has ten seconds to push the pufferfush into position before the pufferfish blows up, destroying any nearby breakable blocks and killing the player if they are too close.

It took a long time to ensure that the pufferfish only collided with what we wanted them to. Once that was done, one of the main things we had to adjust during testing was the timing and weight of the pufferfish. Testers didn't agree on how hard they should be to move or how long they should have to get them to the door. We overcorrected at first and had to backtrack a bit to make the final levels feel right. 

What puzzle game doesn't have a locked door and a key?

This was one of the first mechanics I was asked to create since I had the most experience creating UI in unity. The player can touch starfish keys to collect them, and then touch a door to unlock it. I took a lot of inspiration from games liek Super Mario Bros. when deciding excatly how it would look and feel to make sure people can easily understand what's going on.