Otter's Hell

About the Project

Otter's Hell is a roguelite with bullet hell elements where players navigate different planets, playing as Sparkles, the last general of the Otter Empire, as she faces the inhabitants of the planets and the armies of the fearsome Hamsters, while trying to restore her empire to its former glory.

As project leader and head of the programming team, I was responsible for organising, planning and managing the team and project, as well as for the architecture and development of the game's core systems, including procedural level generation, enemy AI, upgrade and progression systems, item and inventory systems, and game loops, among others.

The game features a stylised 3D visual style, combined with carefully crafted environments and lighting, as well as effects and animations that provide a great sense of fluidity and satisfying visual feedback. We implemented a modular system of objects and weapons that allows for hundreds of different build combinations, giving players the freedom to develop their own play styles.

What began as a university project quickly became an exciting endeavour that allowed me to develop my leadership and project management skills, as well as deepen my knowledge of game development with Unity and C#. Among the challenges were optimisation (solved with object pooling techniques and script optimisation), designing balanced procedural levels, and creating challenging but fair enemy AI.