Needle & Fred

ROLE

Gameplay Programmer

DESCRIPTION

Witch Gladis has left you, Fred - her trusted necromancer-cat-in-training, a task to turn zombies back into humans! Decipher the steps to complete the arcane ritual and prove you are worthy (and earn some tasty treats as a bonus).

YEAR

2024

GENRE

3D, Puzzle, Magic, Cats, First-person, Short

PLATFORM

DEVELOPERS

Celina Basa, Lara Burić, Max Webster, Mike Okeke, Sarah York

KEY FEATURES

Magical riddles

01 Using the notes Witch Gladis left you, work out the correct combination of ingredients to turn these zombies back into humans.

02 Invisible ghouls

Be careful not to make too many mistakes, the ritualistic candles indicate a dark presence in the room if they go out.

03 Cat Gameplay

Experience life as a cat Nekomancer called Fred 😺

MY CONTRIBUTIONS

1 / Interaction Manager

Added point-and-click functionality using ray casting.
Made use of layers so that the player is automatically restricted to which items they can select based on their current step in the ritual.
Cat paw cursor 😺

2 / Puzzle Manager integration

Hooked up the Puzzle Manager to the Interaction Manager.
Refactored code and tested to ensure the puzzle loop was working as expected.

A screenshot of the game setup, with labels to explain what each object is and a caption to explain the interaction system.

Two mock-ups showing separate variations of our game ideas, one using a ball of thread with a needle, and the other using bottles of potions with a syringe needle.

Planning and Outcome

For this project, we used Milanote to brainstorm and refine our ideas. After our game concept was finalised I created a plan for the Interaction Manager and what objects and steps would be involved. I used this plan to help organise my development of the feature and then once it had been successfully implemented, I created a diagram to explain how it works to my teammates.

Our game ranked #16 out of 101 submissions overall, our highest scores being in Theme and Special Feature implementation. I am proud of our group's final rank as for most of us it was our very first game jam, and additionally for me, it was my first time using Unity.