Kabori is a 2D platformer set in the Amazonian rainforest. It was developed for PC and Mac from July to September 2016.
After Trefonds was done, I wanted to work on a project with artists. This is how I found out two Germans students who were looking for a programmer to make an educative game to sensitize kids to deforestation.
None of them had previously work on video games, but one could make animations and the other the music, so I said yes.
The main challenge was time since we gave ourselves only 3 months to finish a 20 to 30 minutes game, and we weren’t doing it full time. Communication was also sometimes difficult since we lived in different countries and our level of English varied.
Making Of
After finishing the basics of the gameplay in Unity, I realised I was going to need some tools for the level design. So I made a terrain editor with smart texture.
This tool can also be used to make objects like tree, I used it later into the game to create the Kapok tree that you must climb to collect seeds.
Other tools had to be made in a short amount of time like a dynamic lighting system, water physics… Objects like trees and plants are randomly positioned.
Conclusion
Working on Kabori was a great experience, it taught me to work with people who speak a different language, to manage an important quantity of assets, to do compromises…
Because of the time constrains, I had be implement new features quickly and I learned a lot in term of architecture and patterns during the process.
I’m really happy we could finish in time, and I’m waiting impatiently for the feedbacks of the kids who will try it a the end of October 2016, for a play-testing my colleges are doing at a German school.
