Physics-based 3D Platformers

In spring 2025, I took a game development class where we were meant to make two Unity games in four weeks each, both on different small teams. We were encouraged to use whatever free code or frameworks we could find in order to save time, so I pitched reusing a control system I made in 2020 for a small personal project that replicated the mechanics of the Super Monkey Ball series. The save on time and the polish of my control system were enough to win my team over, and we developed the game Ball World. When that was done and we split into new teams of three, I pitched the same control method for a game with a different genre/premise, and my new team again agreed to use that as a baseline, leading to Astroll.

I acted as the primary gameplay designer for both projects - further polishing my control system and directing my team in how best to take advantage of the controls to make fun gameplay. I was the most frequent playtester myself, and also led playtests with larger groups. I also implemented the sound effect system to give the ball reasonably satisfying rolling and impact sounds, with their pitch and volume both impacted by the velocity of the ball.

Ball World

My team and I decided to split Ball World into three distinct game modes, with each of us taking the lead on one "minigame." My portion was the infinite runner mode, where the player rolls the ball down an infinitely-generating obstacle course to collect coins and avoid falling, getting a final score depending on their distance, coins, and speed.

While the other two game modes and simple story made by my teammates were good, my gamemode made up the bulk of Ball World's replayability and took the most advantage of our unusual control system.

The infinite level is made up of under a dozen uniqie parts, but by mirroring, offsetting, or tilting a part a bit left or right, we get a never-ending set of varied challenges as a result of how these pieces and edits interact. Coins are purposefully placed along slightly harder paths, especially paths that require the player to have some speed going into them, to incentivize the player to move fast and take the riskier paths for a greater reward - a time-tested gameplay concept.

I also put a lot of effort into the visuals given the time constraints, going for a wooden-block "toybox" style and creating a skybox that would follow the camera's tilt and move with the player, minimizing motion sickness and fast-changing visuals to make a pleasant visual experience.

While Ball World was far from perfect, I'm still extremely proud of my gameplay control system and infinite runner mode, especially considering I had such limited time to work on it.

Astroll

While Ball World was a grab bag of different concepts split between team members, Astroll had a much more unified vision. The concept I pitched to my team was Monkey Ball, but it's a "rage game" along the lines of Getting Over It, Only Up, and Get to Work. As such, we set out to make one large level the player must climb all in one go, without falling. No checkpoints. We knew going into this that Astroll would have a much more limited audience than even Ball World, but I had heard directly from streamers who were fans of rage games and or Monkey Ball that they would enjoy a game with this concept, so I knew we'd be making a game for someone at least.

Each member of the team was on charge of making a portion of the level, and then we would stitch it all together into one scene as we neared the deadline. As the one who both designed the control system and pitched the concept, my job was to create useful level design "prefabs" for us all to use (moving platforms, halfpipes, etc.), make my level portion, and then put all three pieces together in a way that resembled an engaging difficulty curve. While I would not say what we ended up with was perfect (my teammates did not test their level portions), I am proud of the section I made (showcased in the video) and that I was able to stitch everything together at all. It may not have been very accessible, but I stand by the belief that with some more polish, there's an intentionally enraging but fun game to be made with this premise.