Squishi

A solo project of mine for a class at Champlain College. This work was mainly learning how to make use of softbodies in unity, learning how to create one and manipulate it. I was given about half a semester to complete this prototype.

The main mechanic of this game was to have a softbody player, which could grow and shrink based off of how much slime the character had collected. Picking up slime would grow the player in size, and the player could spend their slime to place blocks while becoming smaller, to scale obstacles they previously could not.

The character controller consisted of two main parts: the softbody and the core. The softbody is the outer layer of light blue circles, which I learned to put together using hinge and spring joints in unity. The part the player controls is the core, which is the green circle in the second image. I thought rather than having the player directly control the movement of the softbody, to have a more gelatinous feel to the player I made it so that the core moves, and pushes the softbody along with it. This worked out quite well, but required a lot of troubleshooting to prevent the softbody from caving in on itself.

The player has a reticle tied to the core of the character, that faces towards the mouse at all times. Clicking while the player possessed slime would place a block at this location.

This project was quite successful in accomplishing what I set out to learn, especially for being a solo project with minimal outside help. The mechanics work together well, delivering an experience quite close to my initial intents.