Lead Designer & Software Engineer, 2019-2020
During my graduating year at the University of California, Santa Cruz, I pitched Kangarumble to the class of 2020 to be one of the senior capstone game projects. The pitch was simple: a competitive local-multiplayer game in which up to four kangaroos take short turns trying to stomp on each others' heads. I developed a digital prototype in GameMaker, and proposed the final project to be built in Unity.
I recruited a team of 12 developers, including a producer, artists, an animator, programmers, a level designer, and musicians. I served as the game's lead designer, as well as one of the team's programmers.
Being the lead game designer on Kangarumble was incredibly fun. The core design goal was to achieve a party game that was impeccably balanced; a competitive game that gave every player a fair chance at victory. I carefully tweaked gameplay variables and discussed feedback with play-testers until game rounds regularly ended with extremely close scores.
One of my main projects as a programmer was engineering the user interface. I knew the game's presentation needed a strong sense of flow, so I made sure nearly every piece of UI incorporated an element of motion. I learned plenty about Unity's canvas system, as well as using C# to create kinetic typography!
Halfway through development, the COVID pandemic prevented our team from meeting in person. We continued work remotely, but had to come up with alternate methods of play-testing our local multiplayer game.
The Kangarumble team was awarded for Excellence in Production and Peer Choice Game at the UCSC Games Showcase, 2020. I am enormously proud of this team for making a killer game under ever-changing circumstances, all while keeping the work environment positive and safe.
