Volga Heatwave

This is a hobby game that I made during Unity courses, as a part of my masters studies. After the courses, I loved the idea I came up with, and have decided to expand it and continue working on it whenever I get some free time.

A bit about the theme of the game:

In "Volga Heatwave" you play as a dog left trapped in a hot car by their careless owner.
As the temperature rises, you must use your bark and wits to draw attention and save yourself before it's too late.

With each successful attempt at catching the attention of a passerby, your crowd grows larger, increasing your chances of rescue.

Can you make enough noise to become a hero and save yourself from this life-threatening situation?

This game was made for the Unity development course for the Vidzeme University VRAR masters programme during Dec-2022 - Jan-2023 

The created demo is downloadable here: https://dustylv.itch.io/volga-heatwave

Technologies used

• Unity

• Blender

Role and tasks in project

This project is a solo project.

• Developer

  • Game mechanics

    • Player movement

    • Attention meter

      • Multiple interactable objects that, when activated, activate a sound and adds some attention to the meter

      • Player must fill it to win the game

      • The more attention meter is filled, the more citizens are surrounding the car

    • Temperature meter

      • Temperature value rises constantly

      • When the max value is reached, the game ends

    • Citizen AI

      • Spawning citizen objects on a timer

      • Spawn timer is adjusted based on attention meter value

      • After spawning, citizens move to a random predefined point around the car and perform random animation

• Artist

  • Some 3D model creation

    • Most are sourced from the internet as I wanted to focus more on programming during the course work

  • Created shaders for:

    • Heat distortion screen effect

    • A mesh distortion shader for the sun object

  • Created various 2D graphics for UI and vomit decals

• Other

  • UI for main menu and in-game menus

  • Added sound effects and music