Project: Lil’ Squirt
Position: Producer, Level Designer, and Sound Designer
Duration: 3 Months
Engine: Torque X Gamebuilder
Lil’ Squirt is a single player, 2-D platformer game built in the TorqueX 2D Game Engine. The player’s main weapons are a pressure-based water gun and a laser chainsaw. Run, jump, dash, and to blast your way through the factory and the hordes of murderous robot toys to save your kidnapped parents.
Project Highlights
As the Producer of Lil’ Squirt, I kept a team of 5 on task to create a 2-D side scroller from concept to final product. I wore a whole lot of hats on this small team– I acted as SCRUM Master, drafted and updated the Game Design Doc, Asset & Dev Plan, and task lists, designed and scripted a level, produced sound effects, and scripted the GUI.
Led the Team
I acted as the producer and team lead on Lil’ Squirt. As such, I was responsible for the majority of the documentation, keeping the team on task, and making sure the game’s vision was executed to completion. I really learned how to work well with people on this project. One of the tasks that came up was to bring two new team members up to speed on the project when they came on in the middle of development. I oriented and trained them both; the new team members contributed substantially to the game, one creating an entire level and the other creating high-quality artwork.
Designed the Tutorial Level
I also had a considerable level design role on this project where I designed and scripting the entirety of tutorial level. I taught the player how to use all of the game’s mechanics through easy and interesting scenarios. For example, I taught the player how to use the laser chainsaw on waterproof robots by putting the robot in between two conveyor belts that pushed the player towards the middle. When the player tries to shoot, his shots would bounce off the robot while the conveyor belts bring him closer. This brought players in melee distance where they could easily use the laser chainsaw to kill the waterproof robot. For the next waterproof robot I reversed the conveyor belts’ direction so that the player had to work to use the chainsaw.
Scripted the GUI and Produced SFX
Additional tasks I took on were fully scripting the recharging pressure gauge on our GUI (which represents how far the water gun would shoot when fired) and the battery icon (which represents when the laser chainsaw is fully charged.) I also produced and imported all the custom sound effects using Audacity and audio libraries.