Kindled was a solo personal project that I worked on beginning in the summer of 2020 in order to get more experience in Unity and game development in general. It’s a puzzle/exploration game that takes place in a mysterious underground temple.
I focused a lot on getting the foundational mechanics implemented and well-polished. You can point and click to move the character around and interact with objects.
The game is built on a 3D grid and has A* pathfinding implemented, so you can click just once to command the character to walk up stairs, go across a pathway, and climb a ladder to arrive at their destination.
There were only a few levels that I finished building out before I decided to set the project down, though theoretically the tools and mechanics are all there to create many more levels if I ever decide to pick it back up again.
As part of the project, I made a modular level editor tool in Unity. It uses data objects and a set of 3D tiles to construct environments quickly and easily. It supports palette swapping, premade repeatable structures, hooking up interactable objects like levers and doors, resizing levels, and more.
Kindled was also my first time working with 3D modeling and character animation. I’m certainly no 3D artist, and the game’s style developed to be relatively simple as a result, but I am quite happy with how the game looks. Normal maps, particle effects, and Unity’s dynamic lighting engine can do a lot to elevate a game’s visuals if used right.
