Yarn Of Cats

Hypercasual Mobile Game - School Project (2021)

Context

"Embody a trickster cat with its ball of yarn and try to finish various levels on time!

But ... be careful Grumpy Grandmas are on your tails to get their yarn back."

Yarn Of Cats is a hypercasual mobile game project realized during my 2nd year of Game Design at ISART Digital Montreal.

Project Details

My Responsabilities

Game Design
- Concept of the game and redaction of the one-page concept
- Redaction of a game design document to have the project's guideline
- Helped with the integration of the artists' assets

Programming (in C#)
- All the game (mechanics, enemies, game manager, ...) except UI

Project Management
- Set up planning and sprints regarding the project's scopes (Google Sheet)
- Scrum master in daily standup meetings

GIF of the project's prototype

Production Insight

One Page Concept Document pitching the game.

The detection system operates as follows:

As the player moves, a series of trigger spheres trail behind them, organized in an array.
When two spheres from the array collide, the script is triggered.
Subsequently, the script calculates and initiates ray casting. These rays are responsible for detecting the presence of enemies or checkpoints in the game environment.

Reflection

This project was my first collaboration with 3D Artists students. Coming from a technical background, I learned a lot about their production pipeline and workflow.

Brainstorming for the concept of the game was a fun process. It was during this stage that I recognized my tendency to think in a top-down manner: starting from a general idea or story, evolving it into a concept, and then shaping the gameplay.

I also enjoyed the technical challenges this concept brought. I faced initial struggles, especially with the core mechanic of surrounding grandmas, as I aimed for optimal code optimization. Through this experience, I learned that for a Game Design prototype, if the code is functional, even if not as clean or optimized as desired, it's crucial to keep it and move forward in the development process.

Credits

It has been realized in collaboration with

2 other Game Designers: Arnaud CHALIER and Basile STRANG
6 Artists: Jean-Nicolas BAILLARGEON, Nicolas BENJAMIN, Coralie CORMIER, Juliette SIRULNICK, Valentin VEAUVY, and Louna ZEMP.

For more information about the project and its development, please contact me.