About the Game

Rattus Machinatus is a puzzle-adventure game set in a mysterious royal kitchen. You play as a Pied-Piper inspired toad, using your croaks to command a swarm of rats. Explore the kitchen, solve puzzles, and sabotage the king's meal!

• Lead a swarm of AI-driven rats
• Use the toads and rats four abilities: Break, Build, Push and Throw to complete puzzles
• Hand-crafted puzzles
• Multiple minigames including fishing and gambling

Development

This project was created by a team of 8 students (including me!) at Falmouth University. My main roles included programming the rats AI, developing the puzzle mechanics and implementing the minigames. We used Unity and C# for this project.

Throughout development I learned a lot in terms of creating AI for games and working with Unity's navigation AI system. I also developed my understanding of object-oriented programming by designing flexible systems for interactable objects and puzzle mechanics. By creating a generic base class for interactables, I was able to easily extend and create different puzzle elements, making the game more modular and maintainable.

I also explored creating custom shaders and visual effects in Unity's URP. I learned how to use Shader Graph to create multiple effects, including a scan that highlights nearby interactables to the player, a ghost effect and a visual distortion effect. For particle effects I created a few generic effects such as fire, dust, sparkles and localised fog.

Team Credits

• Programming: Zack Hawkes, Blake Bond
• Art: Deavall Deavall, Toby De Caux, Will Orford and Charlie Margesson (Also the thumbnail artist)
• Design: Luke Webb
• Writing: Alter Presley