Technical Art Focus

From the outset, my role centered on:

• Defining clear art requirements and constraints
• Ensuring visual consistency across sprites and animations
• Designing systems that adapted to the art, not the other way around
• Handling asset integration and implementation in Unity

Given the limited timeline, I prioritized responsive, flexible systems that minimized rework and avoided over-scoping.

We began with paper prototypes to establish:

• Kitchen layout logic
• Player flow and interaction zones
• Spatial readability for co-op play

This low-cost planning stage informed both gameplay structure and visual requirements, allowing us to align art production with how assets would be placed, layered, and interacted with in-engine.

System Design: Separating Visual Layout from Interaction Logic

The game initially used a strict tilemap system for all elements, including floors, walls, and interactable objects. While effective for early layout and visual consistency, this approach introduced friction when implementing interactables:

• Grid constraints complicated interaction logic
• Debugging became increasingly time-consuming
• Minor layout changes had cascading technical costs

To resolve this, I restructured the system into two complementary layers:

• Tilemap system for static, non-interactive elements (floors, walls)
• Free-form placement system for interactable objects

This preserved the tiled visual language while allowing interactables to be positioned, tuned, and iterated on independently of grid constraints.

Impact on Art & Production

This hybrid system:

• Reduced implementation and debugging overhead
• Allowed artists to design interactables without fighting grid constraints
• Preserved visual cohesion while improving technical flexibility
• Enabled faster iteration late into development

By decoupling visual structure from interaction logic, we avoided unnecessary rework and kept production focused on polish rather than technical fixes.