For Round 5 of Building Virtual Worlds at the Entertainment Technology Center, my team wanted to use the unique multiplayer input device, the Jam-O-Drum. We decided to expand upon a small game one of our members, Yujin Ariza, had developed for an early assignment in the class.
The original focus of our expansion was to design a whole suite of games based around sheep herding, but we found it hard enough to re-design the fun prototype to the Jam-O-Drum's shape and controls. Our biggest tasks to take on were reimplementing the physics system to allow for goals, creating additional functionality on top of the original implementation such as dropping sheep in, and adding an entire menu system that would initialize a game with the correct settings.

(The menu was designed to be modular by yours truly because we thought we were going to have multiple game modes! This was actually immensely helpful during rapid iteration later.)

Notable Experiences

• Assisted in the physics system overhaul to apply forces correctly with an additive/subtractive area component.
• Developed a modular menuing system that runs based on a ScriptableObject and delivers the necessary character selection and model information to the game scene.
• Implemented ScriptableObject classes to contain the information to be passed in and out of the menu system.
• Built fun additions onto the previously existing system, such as rolling for movement and launching sheep into the air when a large sheep lands.