After I graduated college, my friends and I who worked on The Veiled Ones decided we wanted to keep developing games together. We wanted to create a game with a different theme from horror, so we decided to make a 3D arcade-style bowling game. I took on the role of Lead Engineer for this project, and after about six months we were able to publish our completed game on Steam.
In Lanesplitterz, you play as Hiro Protag in the apocalyptic lone-standing city of Neo Las Vegas. In this city, the ruler is determined not by democratic election, but by sport. Specifically, those who strive to rule the city must defeat all competitors in Lanesplitting, a dangerous game where you bowl life-size bowling balls that knock over building-size pins down the Las Vegas Strip. The bowling balls are shot out of cannons, and you and your competitors are inside the bowling balls, hence the dangerous nature of the game. The player must learn and master the art of Lanesplitting to ultimately defeat the corrupt ruler and save the city.
My work as Lead Engineer
Developed systems to handle the game architecture
- Implemented an additive scene loading system to simplify scenes and allow for easy and isolated level design.
- Created smooth transitions between rounds and dialogue.
- Utilized a scriptable object architecture throughout the code base.
Engineered a dialogue system
- Utilized Yarn Spinner with C# function calls to properly display character art.
- Used a scriptable object event system to trigger specific dialogue snippets.
- Wrote functions to gradually fade character art to help show which characters are talking.
Implemented various UI elements
- Constructed a fuel meter using Unity UI elements.
- Created a power meter using Unity UI elements and masking to account for a unique UI slider design.
- Programmed the fuel and power meters to update their values based on player input and update the game state using Unity events.
- Developed a scoreboard system that updates player and enemy scores and other statistics after each round.
- Integrated original art from our team of artists into the in-game meter designs.
