Heated Seats

From May to July 2023

A local split-screen Office Chair racing game made for my year 1 cross-discipline project between the Art, Design, and Programming courses of my year at AIE Seattle.

As the only programmer on a team of ten, I was responsible for working closely with both art and design while maintaining full responsibility for how systems and features were implemented.

Some key features I built include:

Local split screen

  • Detect the number of joined players and set up the UI to match that number

  • Keep track of player chair selection and assigned character from level to level

  • Player hot-join menu

  • Keep track of connected devices and which devices have joined the race

  • start only when all players are ready

Game HUD:

  • Update player race position (1st, 2nd, etc) as needed

  • Showcase to the player when they are moving the wrong way through the course

  • Communicate chair instability / charge level of kicks

  • Showcase to the player when they are in range of a surface to wall kick from

Physics based character controller:

  • Built the character controller to specs provided by the design team

  • Responds to and interacts with the environment/hazards

  • Stability based system (chair will fall out from under you on reaching 100)

  • Respawning at the position the player fell

Object pool implementation for optimization:

  • Configurable number of cans will be allowed to be spawned in the level at any time.

  • Once that limit is reached, cans will be recycled from a first in first out order

Hazards:

  • Fire extinguishers that fly around the level when hit

  • vending machines that shoot out cans of soda when hit

  • water cooler that breaks into two separate meshes when hit