Scoop’n Birds
A game for the Nintendo 3DS developed using Unity.
Role: Designer and Programmer
Trailer
About the project
This game is the product of a series of goofy events.
Some friends and I used to walk past a bird store with a big cage in the middle and a giant scoop hanging from one side. We’d speculate that the scoop was clearly the method of delivering birds to the customers.
After some prototyping, I settled on a dynamic that’s hectic and wacky like a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos, but with layers of strategy and finesse. I found it a good candidate for a simple-yet-polished game to release on a Nintendo console.
As for Alice Scooper, the featured NPC who helps you along your way? One of my artists goes to church with the parodied rock star, so that part wrote itself.
Challenges & Solutions
Tricky collision logic
This is a wacky physics based game, but the player is penalized for making a mistake. This leads to a handful of situations that originally felt unfair to the player.
💡 I didn’t want to sacrifice the fun physics goofiness, so I developed what I call a “fudge system.” The game uses a series of colliders of different sizes and prioritizes certain ones based on predictions of what the player is trying to do. It still allows players to make mistakes but shifts things in the player’s favor in any ambiguous situations.
3DS development using Unity
The 3DS is an extremely underpowered system (comparable to 2nd gen smartphones). In addition, Unity adds its own overhead. I wasn’t satisfied with any hitches or a poor framerate.
💡 Not a lot of Unity devs were making 3DS games so I was somewhat of a guinea pig. I worked closely with an engineer at Unity to troubleshoot a lot of issues that had to be resolved at the engine level. I implemented creative solutions across the board to fit everything in memory.
