PLANETARY PLANTER

Space Farming Game

Group Size: 15

Role: Lead/UI Programmer

Duration: Sept 2021-June 2022

Program: Unity 2021

Planetary Planter is a third-person open-world farming game set on an alien world known as Stellanova. In this game, you play as a farmer, exploring this new world, collecting seeds, and growing celestial bodies from those seeds. Once those plants are harvested, you can launch them into space to create solar systems and constellations, as well as tell a story through those constellations.

My primary role on this team was that of a UI Programmer. I programmed the functionality of many of the UI elements in the game, such as menus and tutorials. However, my biggest contribution to this project was the almanac, which acts as a database for everything present. Not only did I have to program the functionality of page navigation and unlock conditions for each item, but I was given the task of designing each page and entry layout. This proved to be a rather challenging task to overcome. Yet, seeing the almanac function as intended and coming together was incredibly rewarding to see.

Checking if an almanac entry is unlocked, and placing it's respective name in the entry button.

Setting unlocking conditions for each almanac entry

Despite UI being my main focus, it wasn't my only contribution to the project. I've assisted with programming the music in the game, including triggers for when one track should transition into another, and a volume slider. Furthermore, early into production, I programmed the physics for a round planet that the player could walk on, although that program has since been scrapped. Finally, I played a rather major role with QA testing, and responding to player feedback. All of these responsibilities, among a few others, proved that I was a capable programmer that was able to do multiple tasks outside of what was required from me.

Code to create gravity for a spherical planet

In December, I was promoted to the position of Lead Programmer, to accommodate for the increase in team size, from seven to fourteen members. Along with keeping current responsibilities, I was also responsible for running programmer meetings, managing programmer workflow, and making any core decisions with the other leads as well as the product owner. It was my first time being in a position like that, and there was a lot of pressure on me to be a good leader. Fortunately, I managed to pull through, and prove myself to be a competent leader. Although I still have much to learn about leadership, I feel I did a good job for what was required of me.

Developing a game of this scale presented its own unique challenges. For example, since I had no experience with music editing software, I had to spend a decent amount of time learning how to use Wwise. Thankfully, our composer had experience with Wwise, and was able to teach me how to use it. Stepping away from programming, adapting to the role of lead programmer. Since it was my first time in this role, I had to figure out how to lead a programming team through each sprint, and manage workflow. It was a challenge that persisted throughout the duration of my leadership, but the process became easier over time. I became more comfortable with being a lead programmer, and became more confident in my skills. It wasn't an easy process, but it was worth it. Beyond those major challenges, there was the typical iteration process of implementing and debugging mechanics, which we adapted to with relative ease.

In the end, Planetary Planter was an incredibly ambitious project for both myself, and the team for a variety of reasons. It was a project on a scale that we'd never done before. As such, it brought about new challenges in terms of prototyping, iteration, and testing. Furthermore, it was the first time some of us accepted a leadership role on any development team. However, that ambition was worth it, because we successfully delivered a product that we are all incredibly proud of.

Planetary Planter is available to download for free on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1974080/Planetary_Planter/

Credits:

Jacob Lipski - Lead Producer

Colin Grier - Producer

Sarah Shaw - Lead Artist, 2D Artist

Nathan Luman - Environment Artist

Jacob Lazarek - Environment Artist

Chase Peterson-Gurak - Animator

Daniel Claps - Lead Designer, Level Designer

Zachary Ginsburg - Narrative Designer

Elijah Wakeling - Systems Designer

Mac Soulsby - Audio Designer

Nicholas Preis - Lead Programmer, UI Programmer

Daniel Hartman - Gameplay Programmer

Henry Chronowski - Graphics Programmer

Matthew Esslie - AI Programmer

Nicollo Pacella - Composer, Audio Engineer