Warehouse Operative

After completing the first section of the Unity Junior Programmer pathway I went away and experimented with what i had learnt, during these experiments i tried a mechanic of stacking blocks, then i remembered a video i had watched of a warehouse using Roomba shaped robots to move and organize stacks of packages and it gave me the idea for this puzzle game.

I came up with a concept where the player would take control of a Roomba who needs to transport a certain number of packages to the end of the level, these packages are all different shapes and the path to the objective is blocked by walls with specific cutouts. The player must stack the boxes in a way that will allow them to fit through the walls and get to the end.

After creating a prototype of the game I showed it to a family member and they made a comment about wanting to play it on their phone, this got me thinking about mobile game development and what a casual audience may want in a game as opposed to hobbyist gamers that I usually designed for.

To develop for mobile I needed to redesign the game, as it was would not work for mobile without emulating a controller through touch controls, instead I decided to remove movement entirely and focus on the stacking of packages, the Roomba would stay in the centre of the screen and the player would drag the shapes from the edge using touch input, once the player is ready to try fit through the cutout they will swipe up and the Roomba will go forward, if successful then they will move to the next mission, if they fail a life will be removed and another attempt can be made.