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Mar 12, 2026

Team Progress Summary

Our team worked on the Beta build, focusing on adding a new level with new mechanics such as button interactions and a new block. New mechanics were added to the overall game such as stunning the enemy, and a firewall.

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A section of Level 2

My Contributions

I worked on implementing keybinds as per our last feedback. This quality of life improvement helped smooth gameplay immensely. Controls felt tighter and easier to use.

Reflection

Feedback went well, although a clearer way of telling the players how to use the firewall would be useful.

Mar 12, 2026

Team Progress Summary

Our team worked on the Alpha Build, and worked on replacing placeholder assets with our own. We also worked on narrative and the first level design, which incorporated feedback from play-testing sessions such as added time pressure.

A Playthrough of the Alpha Build

My Contributions

I worked on implementing dialogue. At first, I tried using camera transitions as the trigger for dialogue, but realized that this was too inflexible. This meant making any changes to the camera would affect the dialogue.

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I decided to restart my work and made invisible boxes that would trigger dialogue upon contact from the Mover. This allowed for my more flexibility, as I can place them anywhere throughout the level freely. I had the dialogue print to console first, to test if the triggers worked. Next, I worked on adding timings between the messages and some UI.

Reflection

Feedback went well. While demoing, we had fun and some of the audience laughed and enjoyed watching the gameplay. One important thing to note is that the buttons at the top are annoying to keep coming back to, so moving them to the middle or adding keyboard shortcuts would make things easier.

Feb 12, 2026

Team Progress Summary

Our team worked on the First Playable Prototype, with me in charge of a UI and Quality of Life mechanics. We finished one playable level. We hosted two playtesting sessions and recorded our feedback to present the final result in class.

A Playthrough of the First Prototype

My Contributions

I worked on a few things in the programming of the prototype

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  1. A "Death Zone" that respawns the player at the last position, to avoid players getting stuck

  2. A "Clear All Platforms" button to clean up player interactions for quality of life, so players don't need to clear each platform manually. This also allows players to clear platforms that fell off-screen.

  3. A tracker that shows players how many platforms the player can still place.

Reflection

Feedback went surprisingly well. One thing to take note is that one group thought they were stuck after respawning, because the Mover was respawned off-screen. One fix to make is to zoom the camera out more.

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One more thing I want to program is the level selector, that allows players to select levels and replay them. Currently, we have to reset the Unity scene in order to replay the level, so I want to add a way to replay it to finish the loop.

Jan 29, 2026

Team Progress Summary

Our team worked on the Game Development Document, with me in charge of a concept shot for the core loop. We worked on a core loop as well as discussed smart depth additions. After much discussion, we were able to come up with a GDD.

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Sketches of Assets for Smart Depth

My Contributions

I worked on a concept shot of the core loop.

 

I ideated an example run for when the players encounter the “weight” object.

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  1. Maker must place two platforms for the mover to reach the weight

  2. Mover reaches the weight, maker has to use the weight to weigh down some buttons in a certain order.

  3. Mover fights enemies while the maker figures out the puzzle.

  4. Maker finds right button to allow mover to reach the key item.

  5. Mover now has a seemingly impossible task of getting to the backdoor. Maker realizes that the weight isn’t just for weighing down buttons, but can also be used to catapult mover using the two platforms from before.

  6. Mover makes it close to the end. Maker can stun enemies and use the weight to squish enemies to let the mover do platforming.

  7. Both players beat the level with a certain star rating.

 

I also brainstormed different environmental elements on top of the group’s idea of an anti-gravity modifier. This included sketches for moving platforms, spikes, slippery platforms, weights, buttons, and more.

Reflection

Our feedback showed that balancing one core loop around two different mechanics may prove a challenge.

Jan 15, 2026

Team Progress Summary

This past week marked our team’s initial project milestone, focused on ideation and proposal. We successfully brainstormed a concrete game concept. We wanted to keep the game within a defined scope for this semester, while leaving the ability to scale upwards. The team collaboratively generated a wide range of ideas, ultimately deciding on a co-op puzzle-platformer with a unique twist: real-time level manipulation. We decided on the puzzle genre because once we have the mechanics and systems down, we can simply add as many levels as we like. We completed a project proposal document and a slide deck for our initial pitch presentation. We also came up with our team name: Orange Goose (Last semester, some of our team members made a board game for IAT 312 called Juiced, and some of our team members worked on an animation for IAT 343 involving cartoon geese. With these names combined, we came up with the name Orange Goose, which sounds like Orange Juice).

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Our Brainstorming Session

My Contributions
My responsibilities were the following sections of our project proposal:

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  1. Design Justification: I conducted a brief analysis of relevant games, identifying Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes as a core inspiration for its asymmetric co-op roles, where players have entirely different interfaces and controls. I connected this to the level-creation freedom of games like Mario Maker. I then combined these into our unique premise: one player (The Maker) manipulates the level in real-time, while the other player (The Mover) navigates the resulting platforming challenges. I detailed how this creates a new layer of social interaction and problem-solving distinct from standard co-op platformers.
     

  2. Risk Mitigation & Alternative Designs: I identified and documented potential design risks. I noted the "single-player cheat," where a skilled player might attempt to control both roles, undermining the co-op intent. To address this, I outlined alternative design choices for us to prototype, such as different control schemes and camera angles.
     

  3. Summary: To ensure our complex idea was easily understood, I concluded my section with a high-level summary. This included bullet points on key concepts (asymmetric co-op, real-time editing), the core game loop (Maker builds/modifies -> Mover attempts platforming -> both communicate to solve -> progress), and a list of core mechanics for each role, as well as the narrative: The Maker is trying to help the Mover escape the confines of their computer and jump out into the real world.

Reflection

Our feedback revealed the asymmetric concept has a possible problem: equal fun. While the roles are different by design, we had not yet planned how to ensure neither player feels like a passive assistant or an overworked manager over a long play session. Balancing will be necessary so that both roles feel equally enjoyable.

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The team can discuss implementing a role-switching mechanic at regular intervals (e.g., every 2-3 puzzles or upon player death). This ensures both players directly experience each role, promoting empathy and better teamwork.

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