A first person hidden object game created to understand the game engine Unity as a tool for creating engaging educational material.
Botany Quest is a single player, first person game where players explore the inside of a botanist’s shed to find hydrangeas that have been hidden all over. It was created as an exercise to learn the game engine Unity and understand how to make a vision come to life.
In game still footage
Project Details
Individual
Duration: 1 month (November 2023 - December 2023)
My Role
Game Concept Development
3D Modeling and Shading
C# Coding
Tools
Adobe Photoshop
Unity Game Engine
Unreal Quixel Asset Store
Autodesk Maya
Substance Painter
Successful gamification requires creators to understand the medium's limitations and possibilities to create visually exciting and engaging educational games.
I created two additional games in Unity. A 2D platformer called Coffee Run and a 3D obstacle course called Dust Bunny. Both games were created as an exercise to understand what coding the mechanics and creating assets for a game enging would look like.
Coffee Run: 2D platformer game
Dust Bunny: 3D obstacle game
Botany Quest was developed building on those previous games as a challenge to combine my knowledge from animated film production into the game design pipeline and pushing myself to realise my vision.
Since this was an individual project I chose to focus on coding the interaction and the environment design
Starting off, I knew I did not want to make a violent shooting game and instead focused on creating a cozy game featuring plants and the theme of botany.
With the lofty goal of creating Botany Quest in a month, I used assets from both the Unity Asset Store and from the Unreal Engine Quixel megascan library. This cut down the amount of time to make custom assets and allowed me to focus on crafting the vibe of the expereince.
However, some things are better made custom: Designing the shed for Botany Quest
To meet the specific requirements of the space I was designing it was easier to make it from scratch and fill it up with the online assets I had found. I designed the shed to have open skylights and a weathered look.
Shed modeled in Autodesk Maya, shaded using Substance Painter and rendered in Arnold