TidalTunes Park
Role:
Lead Programmer, Scrum Master
Software:
Unity, C#
TidalTunes Park is a 2D strategy adventure where players guide a cast of marine performers escaping a high-profile entertainment facility. Each character brings unique abilities that shape traversal, puzzle solving, and encounters, from launching between water sources to disguising as guards or navigating land. Blending playful strategy with a deeper message, the game uses character-driven gameplay to highlight themes of marine life captivity and freedom.
My Contributions
Arc-Launching Traversal System
TidalTunes Park’s core movement mechanic was built around arc-based launching, allowing the player to jump between water sources and reach otherwise inaccessible parts of the level. I implemented this system in Unity to make traversal feel readable, strategic, and tied directly to the protagonist’s identity as an aquatic character navigating hostile spaces.
Character-Specific Ability Systems
Each playable character was designed around a unique mechanic that changed how the player approached traversal, puzzles, and encounters. I built gameplay systems to support these distinct abilities, helping turn character switching into the foundation of progression and problem-solving throughout the game.
Sprint-Driven Gameplay Development
As the sole programmer and scrum master, I translated team ideas into playable systems and manageable development milestones. This meant building mechanics while also helping guide sprint planning, keeping implementation aligned with level design, art direction, and the project’s broader gameplay goals.
In-Depth Development Process
Concept and Design Goals
Our goal with this game was to create some sort of game with an impact. We followed initial ideas for centering our game around conservation, eventually landing on an aquarium based setting to tell our story.
From this point, we developed mechanics and gameplay concepts based around these overarching concepts.
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"Jailbreak" Style Gameplay to push the message of animal abuse in corporate aquariums and zoos.
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Fish Counter and Attempt Counter Scoring System to further this jailbreak gameplay and to incentivize certain mechanics related to animal abuse message.
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Character Selection/Swap to highlight the unique features of common and rare animals found in marine habitats. Learn more about our character research here.
Arc Mechanic Development
For Finn the beta fish's motion, we were inspired by arc movement shown in games such as the Angry Birds series. Since we were going for continual, "timed" movement due to the nature of the oxygen bar, we wanted a one-button system that controlled both the angle and the power of the arc, equating longer presses to higher and farther launches.
In Unity, this required implementing a counter to use time as a variable for the force launched, as well as an indicator that represented direction to give some affordance to the player on the arc angle. We started off with a simple "pointed fish" arrow UI element to represent this direction, but later switched to bubbles to represent the arc in response to feedback stating the direction of the player was still unclear at times.
Character Selection Challenges
The character selection itself was a very simple mechanic to create scripting-wise, but the difficulty came with creating appropriate and useful trade offs for each character use. While each character had unique abilities such as Finn's ability to leap and Mimi's ability to camoflauge, balancing these abilities to prevent overusage of one or the other proved to be a little difficult.
To incentivize usage of all characters, we left Finn with the sole ability to free other fishes, the main goal of the game. Limited by oxygen usage, we allowed Mimi unlimited oxygen, limited by her ability to be caught by guards instead of drowning to cause the game to restart, in addition to a timer on her camoflauge ability. This required careful organization of assets such as stat bars, character timers, and movement controls to make sure all incentives were clearly communicated and effective.
Future Plans/Goals
TidalTunes Park is currently in its prototype/vertical slice stage, with Levels 1 and 2 being released on itch.io and possible future plans for expansion.