Light Weaver is a first-person puzzle game created in Unity3D by 16 students over 8 months. Light Weaver was playable at GDC 2016 at the Academy of Art University’s booth, was nominated in three categories at the school’s Media Awards, and was shown off at the school’s annual Spring Show. I contributed to this project as its sole programmer and technical lead. I worked alongside the director, lead designer, and lead artist to shape the mechanics and feel of the game.
There were several challenges with this project. Primarily, the unique “waypoint” mechanic was simple to implement, but initially relied on Unity’s physics system to move. Because waypoints can bounce, it was difficult to predict where the waypoint would go, and for a puzzle game, that was very unsatisfying. We decided to calculate the bounce ourselves using Unity’s Vector3.Reflect method, and the end result was both predictable and satisfying. This also allowed us to easily create a preview line for the waypoint’s trajectory when the player is aiming.