Table for Two
Table for two was a design exercise in designing and creating a prototype in accordance to the MDA framework. I was responsible for all of the programming with this project, and helped my team with design and some art assets.
Project Info:
- Role: Game Programmer, Designer, 3D Artist
- Timeline: 3 Weeks, September 2025
- Team Size: 4
Tools/Skills: Unity, C#, Blender, GitHub, Communication, Teamwork
Problem: The challenge of this project was to elicit the feeling of ecsis in the player. Ecsis is the feeling of experiencing something and wishing you could share it with another.
Process: Some of our initial ideas included missing a pet when on vacation, or accidentally cooking too much food when living alone. Eventually our team decided to create an experience where the player sets the table to prepare for a date that cancels last minute. To achieve the desired outcome we wanted the player to be able to set the table, and text their date while preparing to make them more emotionally invested. This way when their date cancels they are left with a set table, and emotions they wish they could share. Our initial prototype was a simple experience where the player could place objects on a table.
Learnings: This project taught me a lot of interesting things about Unity and working in a team. As the sole developer in my group
needed to be very clear with my team to communicate what ideas were possible and what assets were needed. I particularly enjoyed working
with my artist who was an international student. Conversing back and forth discussing polygon count, and art style to get the assets properly
imported was very rewarding. With Unity there were two key takeaways. My implementation of dragging used raycasts to cast from the camera view to the mouse position to check if objects were on the table. For the texting functionality I ended up learning Unity’s UI Toolkit instead of Unity UI. This choice was often frustrating since I had not used UI Toolkit before, however after adjusting to it I was able to create a functional texting system taking advantage of it and scriptable objects.
First prototype for object dragging, placing, and game timer.
