Mousetrapped was a group effort between myself and two other students, who provided art, sound effects, and additional programming. As lead designer and programmer, the project gave me a valuable opportunity to understand Unity’s UI system. With the prompt to design a mock Nintendo DS game, we envisioned a point-and-click adventure where you have a full top-down view of your character on the top screen, and interacted with close-up objects on the bottom. After we zeroed in on the idea that the entire game should take place inside a single room, the idea of “looking down” at a mouse scurrying about a time capsule buried underground quickly solidified.

At the time, this was the most complex project I programmed, with a robust “examination” system that allowed you to look at top screen objects on the bottom screen, and text in the form of notes written by the siblings who buried the time capsule. Instead of collecting items and using an inventory to solve puzzles, the player must pay attention to the clues hidden within notes in order to progress. Mousetrapped’s modular puzzle design allowed us to craft a short experience where most of the puzzles can be tackled in any order.