Programming

In this cozy puzzle game, Players assume the role of Sky, a young adventurer set on a mission to reunite her home and the other islands in the land of Ethor. Once a bustling and thriving nation, the land of Ethor flourished with magic from a powerful entity known as the Mother Crystal; that is, until a catastrophic event known as the Fracture separated each island. But that was years ago, and the newer generations of Ethor haven’t known a life without the land being broken. Can you help Sky bring the Isles of Ethor back together? Or are they destined to be broken apart forever?

• Developed in Unity & C#
• Coded in JetBrains Rider
• Version Controlled through GitHub and GitKraken
• Managed progress & deliverables through GitHub Projects and Issues
• Built GitHub Actions Workflows for CI/CD processes to remotely test and deploy the game
  • Includes a custom-made MacOS workflow
• Created all 45 releases of the game and maintained the entire changelog with it

Dozens of Releases

With a deep passion and fascination for version control, Nicole proudly deployed all 45 releases of the game with respect to the team’s semantic versioning rules. She also documented every single release in the repository’s changelog, which bridged the communication gap between engineering and the other less-technical departments. If there was a bug, confusion, or a design request, other teams could note the exact version that they were reviewing, rather than trying to play catch-up with the programmers. In tandem with these releases came the “Known Bugs for Engineering” document that she maintained.

“Known Bugs for Engineering” Document

While doubling in quality assurance, Nicole created this document that helped other teams communicate short-yet-specific grievances to the engineering team. Under each version heading, a suggestion would be documented and translated into our GitHub issues board where engineers can create semantically named branches (e.g., issue/15-player-stuck) that are linked to the issue number on the bug report log. All new suggestions were prefixed with the word New, and all on-going issues were prefixed with Cont. after each subsequent release until the issue was resolved.

In this darkly humorous job simulator, Players assume the role of Aaron Laynes who has taken up a gig at a shady packaging company while searching for his missing girlfriend. While completing his new daily tasks, Aaron slowly uncovers clues relating to his beloved’s disappearance and realizes that the answer to his questions may be closer and more twisted than he could’ve ever imagined.

• Developed in Unity & C#
• Coded in JetBrains Rider and Visual Studio Code
• Version Controlled through GitHub and GitKraken
• Managed progress & deliverables through GitHub Projects and Issues
• Utilizes high-end tools such as Unity’s Cloud Content Delivery service

Save System

This game utilizes a dynamic save system that Nicole engineered to communicate with Unity’s Cloud Content Delivery (CCD) network to clone data to the Player’s disk. This data can be retrieved across multiple sessions, such as what stage the game is in, what quest the Player is pursuing, and so on.

Cloud Content Delivery

The original data for a new playthrough stored in a CSV sheet that is downloaded from a custom Bucket hosted on Unity’s CCD platform. Buckets deliver Addressable Assets, which allow Unity to efficiently load game assets by decoupling the asset references from a physical location on the disk. In other words, Nicole could make changes on the cloud that would be delivered to Players without requiring them to download and reinstall the game’s .exe.

How Data is Downloaded

Upon starting a new game, Nicole created a cinematic cutscene that dynamically loads the cloud-based data in the background and writes it to disk using a custom file path. This file path variable is constructed out of the save slot name the Player entered at the home screen and is continuously referenced throughout the given session to write and retrieve data that is later utilized in the C# code.

Nicole worked on the back end to develop an inventory system that would collect clues to solve the murder. Clues are collected in two ways: (1) through conversations with other characters, and (2) through collision-based interactions in the scene.

Early sketch of Inventory layout.

Below is an example of the YarnSpinner script, which contains the declaration of the clues, as well as their descriptions. These values are set in the game script, and then sent over to the C# code via the GameManager.

In addition to a singular GameManager, Nicole created “Manager” Objects for other systems in her scene, including an InventoryManager, an AudioManager, a ClueManager, and more. These Game Objects contained scripts that controlled assets and logic within the scene. They were set up in an MVC pattern.

Model-View-Controller (MVC) is a software development pattern Nicole discovered in one of her coding classes. She gathered inspiration from the practice to create a unique setup for scripts and objects in her Unity scene. As explained in this commit, she designed a GameManager object that acted as a central hub of communication for different, smaller systems in the scene.

You’re a grad student burdened with debt, and in a desperate attempt to keep the lights on, you opt for an unconventional method: going on dinner dates with rich men who will cover the check. The men, however, are some of the most outlandish playboys out there. And the only way to get what you want is to match their level of weirdness. So, throw on a nice outfit, fake a semi-convincing smile, and get ready to redefine “freaky” romance.

• Developed in Unity & C#
• Coded in Visual Studio Code
• Version Controlled through GitHub
• Implemented dialogue through YarnSpinner

Programming

Players make narrative-based decisions to charm the bachelor of the evening, Jeremy, into paying the bill. Nicole utilized YarnSpinner & C# to systematically create a conversational gameplay loop. See here for more information.  

Project Management

Nicole created and managed a repository for the project, which allowed her to sync her and her group members’ work over multiple computers.

She also frequently met one-on-one with each group member to sketch out a timeline of deliverables. See here for more information.

A thrilling and comedic twist on a classic tale of thievery, Heist Crisis is an RPG following a stealthy money heist gone wrong. After the alarms are tripped on the main character’s exit, they must now break *out* of the bank by navigating from the vault to the rooftop, where the escape helicopter awaits. Use the money from the vault to buy weapons, tools, and gadgets to avoid capture.

• Developed in Python & IDLE
• Art & Design using ASCII art