Rock Hunting with Mohs

Learn about rocks and their properties.

Rock Hunting with Mohs is an educational adventure platformer game about geology. Players traverse Whetstone Island, finding various rocks and researching their properties.

Play the Demo

Summary of Contributions:

• UI Design: I created a layout reference document for all in-game UI for our artists and programmers, and I tweaked various UI over time based on playtester behavior.
• Project Management: I facilitated Agile development practices by leading Scrum ceremonies, maintaining our team's Jira Gannt chart, and helping to budget our time.
• Programming: I developed the background logic for our levels, the architecture for storing and using the player's data, and several UI-based scenes.

User Interface Design Mockups:

While making the UI reference document, I focused on (1) precision, such that other team members could unambiguously use it as a reference; and (2) usability, to create an intuitive experience for the player.

Below are my UI mockups, created in Affinity Designer, and the resulting scenes in-game:

See Full Reference Document

Systems Programming:

I worked with the other programmers to establish the technical design of the game, and then was primarily responsible for:

• Interacting with objects and characters in-world
• Handling branching sequences of events during those interactions
• The Rock Journal (an interactive booklet)
• Save and Load behavior
• Miscellaneous UI implementation

My "sequence of events" system was notably flawed in that it was cumbersome for our level designer to actually implement. The lesson learned is to ensure my work accurately addresses my team's workflow by collaborating more closely with those who will ultimately use it.

Project Credits: Shannon Lin, Alex Kaplan, Maze Labowitz, Leigh Allen, Tim Goggin