Programming Responsibilities

I had multiple roles when working on the project - initially tasked to just be a programmer but expanding to include a design focus. There was a lot of collaboration involved in all aspects.

The project was developed in Unity using C# - with my main coding responsibilities involving:
  • NPC pathing systems
  • Writing the NPC generation code
  • Implementing UI (such as the Social Media system and Pause Menu)
  • General Systems development (such as for the recipe book, ingredient preparation and collisions)
  • Polish and Juice. Lots and lots of polish!


Narrative and Additional Responsibilities

I wrote a script of over 1000 lines of dialogue for the game - including most of the character dialogue, and all of the tutorial and recipe dialogue. I also did all of the quest design and progression.

During DES310, we had to do presentations every two to our both our academic mentors at Abertay and industry mentors at Rockstar Games. I was involved in leading a number of our presentations and our pitch to the DARE judges that got our project into the finals!


Project Thoughts

I feel like working on For Hexposure and having to work so many unconventional roles really changed the view my own work and my personal passions. For Hexposure is directly commentary on being a struggling creative trying to keep yourself afloat and I think when writing the dialogue I found a lot of myself in that position.

I wanted to create something that's equal parts someone’s comfort game and something just outside of someone’s comfort zone. Something incredibly accessible whilst still giving you a lot more than you bargained for. Almost like a video game sitcom - it was so much fun to write this ensemble cast of characters and think of scenarios that they could all get into.

In game design - there is this idea that you want to tailor all of the systems in the game to make it the same, unchangeable, best-possible experience for the player. I wanted to create something that flies in the face of those guidelines and give each player a different experience. I wanted to create a linear experience that meets you halfway, where no two playthroughs will be the same and no two people will play the game the same way. Almost inspired by Pokémon - every time you play you'll find different Pokémon, have a different team. I wanted people to play the game at conventions and talk with their friends afterwards saying "hey, I never saw that character!" Using the limited scope to create something unique for all players.

Taking the game to EGX was incredibly surreal. Seeing the world fully appreciate your work - getting a visual of the progress you had made as an artist. Standing there with your own stall, not only with loads of other indie creators, but also huge game series I've played my entire life, and having people come to play your game and say how much they love it? It's this magical, soul-completing high that I've been trying to chase ever since.

DARE was a huge learning experience - coming in working every day, working with production schedules, meeting industry mentors. It's a huge leap from the typical student experience, but seeing the project slowly grow over time and being right there from the start throwing those initial prototypes together... is completely fulfilling. Everyone on the team views this game as our own little passion project. When we won, I cried... a lot... I think that was the first time I'd worked on a piece of art and felt that full-swept, worldly appreciation for it. There's a cosmic shift that you feel when you go from hoping you are good enough - to really knowing it.

Every member of Yellow Crow is a spectacular artist on their own - but coming together really makes something far more unconventional and creative than the sum of our parts. There's a full list of credits on our Itch page - every one of them deserves all the love in the world. I wanted to make the game as perfect as I could: not just to show my own work, but because they all deserve that platform for their creation.

Other places I can be discovered!


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