The Great Strawberry Heist is a 2D platforming experience intended to be played on an arcade cabinet. The game was developed by a team of eighteen, on which I served the dual role of designer and programmer. It was showcased at Bradley University’s annual FUSE event, where it earned the Galactic Excellence Award from Undead Labs. Players control a hamster and have two minutes to scale the birthday cake of a cat, gobbling up fruit and avoiding obstacles along the way.

As one of five designers, I workshopped game mechanics and greyboxed a platforming segment. When I began to help the programming team as well, I worked on a variety of elements, including physics, scene transitions, animations, and particles. I also made significant bug fixing contributions, fixing multiple elusive and complicated issues. Working on the game taught me a lot about communication. Design discussions, Jira usage, and detailed GitHub commits effectively kept the team on the same page. I was also one of a few team members who kept working that summer to polish the game and prepare it for its Itch release.