Turtle Town
January 2021-May 2022
Creative Director
Art by Laura Littleton
Turtle Town is a 2D PC strategy game that tasks the player with constructing and managing a city on the back of a moving turtle as they explore a dangerous forest and rescue their animal friends.
My role in the Turtle Town project evolved over time. I started off as the designer/programmer of a 2-person team in the spring of 2020, then pitched the game to the USC faculty and worked as the creative director of a 30-person team.
Design and Directing
As creative director of Turtle Town, my goal was to create a game that blended the city-builder and survival game genres. I worked with the department leads to make sure that the two systems were integrated well with each other.
My work included:
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Systems Design
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Design Documentation
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Faculty/Guest Presentations
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UI Layout Design
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Production Coordination
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Enemy Design
To communicate my ideas, I created and maintained design documents and spreadsheets to be given to the team's design and engineering departments.
Another task of mine was the creation and presentation of biweekly updates to a board of faculty about the progress of the game and the goals of the team. In these updates, I showed off new features, described our work progress, and went over any challenges we encountered along the way.
Work Examples
Faculty Presentation Slides
Resource System Diagram
Building Design Documentation
Building UI Layout
Programming
I was the main programmer of the game from January to May of 2021, implementing all of the various building, combat, and menu systems included in the prototype that I presented to faculty in May of 2021. After receiving approval, I oversaw a team of 4 engineers who programmed enemy AI, resource collection, and an interactive dialogue system.
My work included:
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Systems Programming
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Enemy and Turret AI
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Enemy and Resource Spawn Systems
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Build System Using Scriptable Objects
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Dialogue Triggers
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UI Programming
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Art Implementation in Unity
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Audio Implementation in Unity
Work Examples
Turret AI Script
