Chat King

Context

You play a messenger thread. The conversation moves forward through the replies you pick, with short mini-games in between.

The branching had to be editable by the writer, not by me

Tooling first

The branching was the heart of the game, so it needed to be editable by the person writing it rather than by me.

I built a custom branching dialogue structure the game designer could work in independently. Looking back, the fact that my first commercial project produced a tool for someone else says more about how I work than the game does.

The hard part on screen was the messenger itself: getting a bubble background to stretch to the text inside it, and making the conversation scroll the way a real chat does.

Between conversations sit mini-games a few seconds long, like sinking a basketball. One of them is the only 3D moment in an otherwise 2D game, and it is about slicing objects flying towards you with a knife.

Worth calling out

I built this one end to end — gameplay, menus, progression, shop, skins, tutorial, ads and store builds. These are the parts worth naming.

The game

• A branching dialogue system with an editor the game designer used on their own.
• The messenger interface: bubbles that fit their text, and a conversation that scrolls.
• Every mini-game between the conversations, including the single 3D one.

More from the game

Project facts

Year

2022

Role

Unity Developer

Team

Three-person pod — game designer, artist, me

Scope

Solo developer, concept to release

Studio

Vira Games

Released as

Calibro Games

Engine

Unity, C#

Platform

Android · Google Play and Amazon Appstore

Target device

Amazon Fire 7 · 1 GB RAM

Order

First commercial project ever

Dialogue

Branching stored in ScriptableObjects, authored in a custom editor window

Mini-games

About five between conversations, one of them the only 3D moment in a 2D game

Where to see it

Amazon Appstore ↗ · listed as Chat King - Chatting Master

Tools & techniques