Engine: Unity 2022 Role: Lead Gameplay & Customistaion Programmer
Fat Cat
Eat your way to your heart's content, while you play this hypercasual mobile game. You take on the role of Fred, the hungry cat. Run through the level and avoid obstacles that will cause you to lose weight, while eating food that will help you gain weight. Keep an eye out for donuts, they will allow you to enter zoomies where all food eaten has a multiplayer in weight gain. When the level is complete weigh yourself on the Chonk-O-Meter to see if you are fat enough to pass the level. With each level completed gain coin rewards that can be used in the in-game store to customise your cat with different skins.
FatCat was the first team project I completed at AIE. The project was completed within 10 weeks, the first 4 however were spent planning the project leaving us with 6 weeks to make this whole project from scratch. the team consisted of 2 programmers, 2 artists, 1 VFX Artist (film and animation), and 1 game designer.
My Contribution to this Project
My role for Fat Cat was leading the gameplay programming and customisation systems. My main focus with gameplay revolved around player movement along and between the lanes, while Lucas, the other programmer, focused on the controls. After completion of the core gameplay loop, I moved on to the store and customization where I was able to introduce different skins that can be applied and saved to the character with some extra easter eggs for the final 2 expensive skins.
Main Responsibilities:
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Movement and gameplay
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Customisation Store
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Customisation System
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Saving System
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Main Menu
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Options Menu
What I Learnt from this Project
I learned a lot when programming within Fatcat. Most importantly the team structure and how to work in a game development team. All of my projects before this had been solo projects or team projects consisting of only programmers. It was a lot of fun and great for learning the capabilities of others and how to work with and around what they can and can't do.
Key Learnings:
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Teamwork within a game development team
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The importance of Juice in games
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Performant and easy-to-modify Store and Customisation systems
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The importance of production planning
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How fast pace a team environment can be.
