Hattrick the Magician
Hattrick the Magician is a skill-based VR game in which the player performs magic tricks as a stage magician. The player attempts different magic tricks (mini-games) to try to wow the crowd. Tricks include activities like throwing and catching cards, and spinning plates.
This game began as a four-person proof of concept project which was built over a three week period. It was approved to go forward as a formal student project. We expanded the team to eight members, and continued work over the course of a semester, culminating in the release of a demo of the game.
I contributed heavily to the design and code of this project, and also worked as the team lead for most of the project.
Team Size: 8
Platforms: Quest 2
My Role: Game Designer and Programmer
My responsibilities:
Contribute to and supervise over the design of the game overall, as well as the design of specific magic tricks.
Implement tricks and game systems in C# and Unity.
Lead the team as a whole, coordinating efforts in design, code, art and audio.
Hattrick is part of the 2021 Michigan State University Charity Bundle, available here on Itch.io.
Sample Code
Here is a piece of sample code from this project. This class controls a card prop that can be thrown over the audience and returns like a boomerang. It can also be flicked from hand to hand. These different moves are controlled by a simple state machine that alternates how the card moves depending on which move the player is executing. In its normal state it moves according to rigidbody physics, in boomerang mode its position is moved along a Bezier curve, and in flick mode it’s position is set using linear interpolation.
These cards can also be held in a fan in one of the player’s hands, which is the purpose of the CheckForCardFan and TryAddOtherCardToFan functions.
This is a good example of a slightly more complex piece of gameplay programming. It ties in with a “Trick” class which keeps track of the scoring of the magic trick that uses these props, and a deck class that can spawn more boomerang cards for the player to throw.
