The Exhibition
Skills Developed
- Unity C#
- Worldbuilding
- Gameplay Design
Main Roles
-
Designer
-
Programmer
Overview
The exhibition is a 2D platformer created for one of my university modules with Unity C#. The focus of this project was on my approach to worldbuilding. In this game, the player controls a tourist who can explore an exhibition dedicated to a revered artist. Inside of this exhibition, the player is able to enter individual paintings to complete platforming challenges while learning more about the artist. Each painting focuses on a specific emotional state, such as nerves or pressure. This has allowed me to design interesting levels while telling a unique story along the way.
Developing with Creative Restraints
A large part of this project was first developing our initial ideas through the development platform Bitsy. Bitsy is a platform for creating small games and experiences where the designer is restricted to a 16x16 grid of tiles and a small set of tools. With this, I was able to quickly prototype multiple versions of how the gallery would function in gameplay and a basic implementation of going into individual paintings. I eventually settled on a system where the gallery would function as a hub to get the player from level to level, while spreading additional sources of lore and information for the player to discover.
Bringing my Prototype to Unity
For the version of my game in Unity, I wanted the gallery to be a 3D environment that the player could freely explore, while each painting would be a 2D level with a unique mechanic tied to it. The 2D levels required a character controller that would be modular and easy to adjust, while including many of the affordances offered in contemporary titles like the player’s jump changing depending on how long they hold the button down.
For each level I aimed to create in the prototype, I created a document to plan out the scope of the level, as well as initial layout that I would implement. This made creating levels more efficient since I had made sufficient plans beforehand.
​Project Management
Throughout the project, I tracked my progress with Trello. I used decomposition to break down the project into more manageable steps, then oragnised each goal into individual columns sorted by date.
This allowed me to plan out the development of my prototypes and meant that I did not develop features that would not be completed in time.
