2013

MegaFish is a single-player, accelerometer-based, casual game made for iPad-2, revolving around the story of a fish left to its own in an eat-or-be-eaten world.
I worked with a team of five, including two level-designers, to create this game.
In addition to contributing to the implementation, I also designed and executed all graphics, UI, and animations in the game.
I managed the team during this time as well, including low-level goal-setting, scheduling work, and coordinating progress of tasks among members.

Megafish was made from scratch on Cocos2D on a deadline of two months.

In this game, the player controls Megafish, who's on his own to find his way to an eating competition on the other side of the sea. Underneath the silly plot, the primary game objective is to eat as much "food" (weaker fish and clams) as possible in the given time without being eaten yourself.
• Various types of fish (with distinct behaviours) in the sea constantly make your task harder. The occasional friendly whale attempts to balance that.
• Objects in the environment, such as sea weed and magnetic rocks, are double-edged swords and can be harmful if not used intelligently.
• Other mechanics, such as fish-nets and volcanos, also create further openings for strategy.
• To retain a taste of classic gameplay, a few powerups (such as a shield and invisibility) were thrown in the mix.
• Achievements, 'Perfect' level stars, and an Unlockables Shop, were implemented to maintain a metagame even outside level play.

In addition to programming the Megafish codebase, we also focused on a few things from a design aspect:
• Developing a difficulty curve and tutorial levels.
• Making levels more fun and simple to play: catering to a wider audience in general, while still keeping a few levels with the option of strategy open for more aggressive players for better rewards.
• Though straightforward play achieves the purpose, we designed levels with a higher degree of risk/reward, with rewards like hidden areas, special item bonuses, and pacman-style power-pellet.