Goal

The goal given to us by the university was to create a project based off of a classic game, but with a slight twist. We had a few options to choose from, but decided to go for Metal Gear Solid’s early adaptions.

You are a gnome who simply wants a glass of beer at the local pub. However, your wife is outside making sure you stay at home to do all the cleaning you promised to do. So, what do you do? You take your friendly neighbour gnome with the same situation and sneak out! You can push statues in their way and let one player distract the women through noises, so your buddy can progress further.

Beer Buddies is a local co-op game instead of the regular single player experience that Metal Gear Solid offers, which was our “twist”.

Responsibilities

As I averaged a bit higher in skill level than most programmers of my year, we decided it’d be good for me to take the role as a lead programmer and give advice to fellow team members on the do’s and dont’s. This was very helpful for their learning and was a very enjoyable experience.

Furthermore I created some Tri-planar mapping for the hedges so that it’d be easier for artists and designers to place them around seamlessly. I also created some easy tools to create levels with as Unity back then didn’t have nice snapping tools. Lastly I added some visual effects that really complimented the gameplay, like the field-of-view indicators on the women and the end-screen that gives you a rewarding feeling.

Gameplay-wise I didn’t implement as much, but I did make the entirety of the player movement and the pushing around of the statues.

Awards

At our university, we won all awards that were possible to achieve. Best programming, art, design and overall. It was a blast and we all remember the project very well to this date.