Barkane: The Folds of Calamity

Barkane: The Folds of Calamity is the first game I’ve led as part of Georgia Tech's student game development club VGDev and my most ambitious project to date. You play as Marmalade, a magical shiba inu, as she seeks to collect the shards of the gems of ultimate power by traversing a series of paper-folding puzzles. Despite their small size, the bark of Barkane levels is just as big as their bite. Navigating the paper levels is a daunting but rewarding task for players.

As the project lead, I’ve helped guide Barkane from ideation to development. The most difficult task by far was programming the paper folding system. In my research, I encountered a variety of paper- and grid- based games, but never one that involved 3D paper manipulation. As I began programming, the reason for this quickly became apparent. The resulting paper system required the implementation of a complex folding and collision detection mechanism to ensure the paper behaved as expected in the real world. The final result utilizes a number of algorithms, including a DFS on a partitioned graph and a custom raycast. 

I’ve also had to uphold project code standards by reviewing pull requests through GitHub. When a developer completes a new feature, I review the request to ensure the code is effecient, functional, and follows our established guidelines.

The nature of the game lent itself particularly well to paper prototyping, which I used to craft a variety of level mockups. When it came time to translate these ideas into the game, I created the architecture for a comprehensive level editor, allowing designers to quickly realize their ideas. 

Barkane is anticipated to be completed in late 2022.