ROLE
Solo - Designer & Programmer
The Island is a 3D survival and crafting game where players are stranded on a mysterious, abandoned island. Racing against rising waters and an approaching storm, they must gather resources, craft items, and escape before time runs out. The project was both a short game and a technical exploration of dynamic terrain and environmental systems.
YEAR
2020
GENRE
Survival
GAME ENGINE
Unity
HIGHLIGHTED SKILLS
Procedural Terrain, Performance Optimisation, Dynamic Systems, Systems Design
PLATFORM
PC
Features
Design
Challenges & Solutions
Custom terrain system: Built a fully procedural tile-based terrain system from scratch, rather than relying on Unity’s terrain, giving maximum flexibility for gameplay and level design.
Performance optimization: Implemented a chunking system to ensure only visible sections of the terrain were active, maintaining smooth performance even with a large world.
Dynamic storm system: Developed a system that simulates a storm with gradually increasing intensity, including rain, wind, and lightning, which adds tension and urgency to gameplay.
Crafting & objective systems: Designed a context-aware crafting menu and tracked player actions (e.g., collecting resources, felling trees) to drive objectives and progression.
Reflection
Developing The Island strengthened my skills in procedural generation, optimization, and dynamic environmental systems. As a solo project, it also taught me how to balance technical ambition with playable design, and how to manage a complete development pipeline independently.
