Gameplay
Mind Drifter is a game that was developed in a small group format as a Junior year class at Bradley University, with an operating team size of 7 people. I was responsible for programming all game elements, from the environment and players to the UI and speech system. Alongside this, I was responsible for developing level 2 as an attempt to make the level design a little more interesting and puzzle-like. However, the concept of duality seemed to have been flawed in its execution, as the puzzles tend to feel one-sided, with swapping being a fairly uninvolved process.
Mind Drifter is a game that was designed through a Junior level game production class, in which I worked with 7 others on this game. In this project, I played the role of Lead Programmer and was responsible for scripting most of the interactive gameplay objects. In the process of designing these, I did my best to cut down on as much work as I could by "combining" scripts, such as making a "hinged object" script instead of a door or drawbridge script.
In this game, the player solves puzzles and progresses through levels by swapping between playing as Logica and Partum, two halves to a whole. Partum has the ability to create objects, while Logica has the ability to reach far and modify the objects Partum creates, such as turning a cube into a platform or a sphere into a launcher.
Due to the basic design of the game, I was able to re-use my custom first-person rigidbody movement system, with the modification of mid-air movement. One flaw this project has helped to point out is a stutter present in the system, which I had neglected to notice. During its time here, I managed to work out a few kinks and make the system feel more polished, including working out how to avoid slopes acting more like ramps. Alongside this, in order to reduce the overall amount of scripts necessary to write, I found ways to have scripts that could be reused in other forms, such as a hinged object behavior instead of creating both a door and drawbridge behavior.
Alongside this, I designed the level titled Occipital Lobe, which re-uses the song from another of my prototypes, Collision of Realms. In creating this level, I was attempting to make up for the first level, which was heavily linear. However, through playtesting, I found that my skills in using the environment to direct a player's attention need work, as players seemed to have some difficulty finding their way around.
