Project Summary
Escape From Calypso was my first complete game made with the Unity engine. It is a 3D platformer-on-rails, and follows the story of android A318 as he seeks to escape the android city of Calypso. Calypso is suffering from an underground war between the authoritative Calypso Administrative government and UNLOC, a rebellion that seeks to free all androids from the Administrative’s grasp.
Gameplay is simple: collect all hammers and break down the door at the end of each level to progress. Movement controls are limited to jumping. There is no combat, but the player must avoid the Administrative guards and drones using obstacles and clever maneuvering.
Work and Credits
Not all code is my own – base movement and level progression code was provided by Michael Baker of the University of Texas at Austin. Other code, including code for enemy AI, music, and menus, was written by me. Thorough game design documentation was also written by me. Assets and music are from the Unity Asset Store and Freesound.org, and credited in the game (as well as on the download page).
Reflections
As my first complete foray into game development with the Unity Engine, my goals for this game were primarily 1) to make a working, playable game with a story, and 2) work on improving my programming and scripting skills with C#. Throughout previous projects, I had mainly built on code from other sources, such as the first-person character controller in the Unity Standard Assets pack. However, I wanted to do more with code; I wanted to design my own mechanics and systems. The result is Escape From Calypso, with its interactive 3D menus, persistent music system, and cutscenes. The code I wrote for this project was admittedly very rudimentary compared to the code I write now, but it was great practice and helped expand my C# knowledge. I would not be designing systems and mechanics now without this project!