Order of Cthulhu
Lead Programmer, August - December 2023
Order of Cthulhu is a single player cooking simulator with an eldritch horror theme. In it, you play as a human hired to work in Cthulhu’s brand new restaurant.
You are tasked with single-handedly manning the kitchen by cooking and serving orders of questionable-looking food to Cthulhu’s patrons.
The game takes place over three levels, over which the potential recipes get more difficult, and the customers’ patience wears thinner. Survive all three shifts and you are rewarded with a measly paycheck! Fail to complete a shift, and Cthulhu’s patrons will grow tired of waiting and eat you instead.
Screenshots from Order of Cthulhu, HW2C Games
On this project, I ...
-
Programmed in GameMakerStudio 2 for HW2C Games, a five person development team.
-
Collaborated with the whole team on the development of the creative vision for Order of Cthulhu.
-
Developed game mechanics with my team’s level/sound designer and creative director.
-
Adapted game mechanics to achieve realistic results within our timeline.
-
Presented Order of Cthulhu at Breaking Boundaries with Video Games, an annual conference held by the University of Rochester Digital Media Studies program.
I took a class in Video Game Design at the University of Rochester that posed a semester-long final project to its students: a short video game, with original game mechanics, art, narratives, and sound design should we have time. Within two weeks of the class starting, we had formed teams of 4-5 developers, and off to the races we went.
​
In all honesty, I did not set out to be the Lead Programmer for HW2C Games (our team had decided on this name within minutes of forming). At the time, I would have greatly preferred to be the Creative Director. But thanks to my confidence in my coding ability – a trial by fire courtesy of my physics degree – and the rest of my team’s strong desire not to code, I wound up as Lead Programmer. And I am so thankful I did.
​
​This role taught me about time management more so than any other role on this project could have. It was my responsibility to contribute the large majority of the programming to the team. Learning GameMakerStudio 2 while simultaneously beginning work on this project was a blessing and a curse when it came to managing my own time, so I learned some hard and valuable lessons over the course of this project.
Cthulhu from Order of Cthulhu. Art by Bram Poirier.
I was also so glad to serve in this role because it gave me regular epiphanies on what it takes to translate narratives and game mechanics into a real, functioning game. As someone’s whose preference and skill set lies more in narrative and game design rather than game development, I was used to dreaming big about what stories I wanted to tell, or the games I wanted to make, without giving as much thought to the physical capabilities that would be needed to execute on that idea.
​
Being on the other side of that coin, though frustrating at times, was a reality check that I desperately needed. It instilled in me a flexibility that I now value as utterly necessary. It’s oftentimes very difficult, if not impossible, to bring a wide reaching narrative or game idea – which many games and stories end up being in the ideation phase – into a game, and so it’s inevitable that compromise will happen. And this project reinforced this idea in me, for which I am incredibly grateful.