Timeline: 1 month

Genre: FPS Game

Description: This project involved developing an adventure game featuring a rich blend of backgrounds, objects, animations, and textures to enhance the player's experience. Upon spawning, players receive instructions via message boxes and can acquire weapons to combat enemies. The gameplay revolves around defeating enemies, locating a castle to solve a riddle and progress to the next stage of the game, and tackling increasing challenges in subsequent areas. Coding, environment design, user interface, and NPC interactions were completed individually with some models like weapons being sourced from external creators.

Process and Challenges: In the initial phase I focused on constructing core structural elements of the game like the platforms, map, and skybox.  Once the core elements were completed, I worked on developing the player’s character.  I paid attention into its functionalities and interactive capabilities. Following this, I added the enemies into the game environment. Once I was satisfied with these elements, I concentrated in enhancing the user engagement and control.  I worked on the User Interface and (UI) and Pause Menu. The final stage of development was dedicated to refining functionalities the overall aesthetics of the game, always keeping in mind the need to improve the user’s gaming experience.

Lessons Learned: During the development of Sky Riddle, I faced a variety of challenges; the most notable ones were integrating mechanics for player damage and the ability to pick up/read riddles. Through troubleshooting and feedback from other students and professors I was able to make the necessary changes to streamline the user’s experience. Once I changed from message boxes to message boards I spent a lot of time integrating a pause menu because from personal experience, I recognize the vital role it plays in gameplay. From Sky Riddle’s developing experience, I learned to work under tight deadlines and I learned the value of the evolutionary process of game design and creation.  I learned that in game design there are great compromises that force you to make strategic decisions between your vision and what is feasible. I feel that at this point in my career, I had just gotten my feet wet in Unity Engine, but I saw how in a short period, I became more proficient with it. Overall, I learned that you can’t lose sight of the end and that always user experience will take precedence.