MONUMENT KITCHEN
"Monument Kitchen" was a 3 month project developed as part of the CSE 451 - Video Game Programming II course at Washington University in St. Louis. The project was developed wholely from scratch with all features and art being developed independently over the course of the semester. Horde was the first project which I developed and implimented features. The project prioritized completion and polish over the quantity of features, as such the gameplay features are simplistic. The project was developed in Unity and the scripting language in C#. All models, textures, animations, and UI elements were made using Blender.
GAME CONCEPT
The gameplay draws influence largely from Plate up and Monument Valley. The map design and non-Euclidean design borrows from Monument Valley while the general gameplay and flow closely follows Plate Up. The concept was to create a management style game whilst incorporating randomized elements that force the player to constantly be finding shortest paths and optimal set ups to complete each level as fast as possible. Players during the level will have to navigate the map to collect ingredients from fridges located randomly around the map, attempting to complete the loop as fast as possible to earn more points. After the first set of stages is cleared, the game flow and pace speeds up by halving the time allotted per level but giving the player access to teleporters as a new option for navigation.
Monument Valley - map design inspiration
Plate Up - gameplay inspiration
ASSET CREATION PROCESS
The player model was made from scratch and follows a simplistic artistic style like Monument valley and plate up. The player is one sub-d object with a simple rig. All animations were created in Blender.
Food props and ingredients were modeled and textured in Blender. The props used a simple color pallet for texturing and used a simple shader for icon renderings and to replicate the artistic style in Unity.
LEVEL CREATION PROCESS
The level was designed in a similar fashion to levels found in Monument Valley, junctions on certain corridors created the illusion of having a non-Euclidean map structure. The level was designed such that the player will have to constantly find the shortest path from the center to the refrigerators. Junctions and walls were put in certain areas to make it such that the shortest physical distance isn't always the fastest route. For each progressing stage the fridges will relocate to predetermined locations around the edges of the map, forcing the player to constantly find the shortest path instead of memorizing the locations. The map geometry was made using Pro-Builder geometry and the non-Euclidean effect was created using an orthogonal camera with colliders that teleported players between a "near" and "far" section of the map to create a seamless transition between overlaying ground sections.
