Synthesis

Platform: PC
Engine: Unity 2D
Date: February 2025 – May 2025
Team Size: Solo Project

Synthesis is a small solo project I’ve created during my Advanced Seminar in Game Design course at Champlain College.

Summary

My goal during the semester I took to work on this was to get a solid foundation for a gameplay loop working. I wanted the player to be able to navigate a small open area where they can test the “crop” planting mechanic, as well as explore the inventory UI.

The game is set in a Sci-Fi universe on an alien planet where the mineral components of the soil underground allow for the agricultural growth of crystals! As a crystal farmer, your character is meant to plant an assortment of crystals, watch them grow, and sell them to the wider galactic market!

My Role

As sole creator of the project, I took on multiple roles to try and get this working prototype. Design work was what I was used to, but programming myself took a lot of extra time, and really inhibited the prototype fully coming to fruitition. Art and sound for the prototype was taken from free use websites, or free asset packs on Itch.io.

The planting mechanic I created revolves around checking for certain items in a player’s hotbar, then changing a tile to reflect the stages of planting a crystal. I wanted to player to feel like they were truly using the tool, so for example, the auger must be selected in the hotbar to actually turn the tile into a tilled tile.

The other mechanic is the prior mentioned inventory and hotbar, which ties into the rest of the game. The inventory is used to store what items a player has picked up, and can be sorted via drag and drop. The hotbar is used so players can actually use the items they’ve collected. Players can drag and drop an item into the hotbar, then select that hotbar slot by clicking on it or selecting the corresponding number key.

The idea is for this prototype is to grow and evolve past this assignment into a real game prototype, adding the features missing to the gameplay loop such as a time mechanic, a selling/currency mechanic, and the above ground world!

Takeaways

Obviously this was all concept still, and Synthesis has not grown to a full game yet, or even a prototype that is super innovative. This solo project taught me a lot about knowing my abilities and where I need to improve.

Programming was not my strong suit, and really held me back from doing more in this project. But despite this, I made do with what I could do, and combined with research, I made atleast a proof of concept.

Even with all the difficulty that came with trying to make this, I tried to push myself to make it work, and that’s actually something I needed to learn from as well. My scope for this prototype was way too high at the beginning, to the point I had to trim it more and more as time went on. Synthesis taught me a valuable lesson in creating appropriate scope, and to work within my ability before expanding into greater ideas.