A screenshot image of the project Surveyor. It shows a digital graphic of a brown house with a tree on the left side and a lamppost on the right, and a journal icon in the bottom left. The house is sitting on green grass with a blue sky behind. It is all in a simple lined, cell-shaded style.

Surveyor

A point-and-click game based on actual storm surveying techniques.

Play Surveyor on itch.io

Gameplay:

In surveyor, you play as a storm surveyor investigating damage to structures following a tornado.

Each level places the player in a different location with different structures to inspect. The player compares the current state of the structures with a blueprint and locates specific damages to the structure. After discovering all the damages, the player marks them in a notebook and receives an accuracy score.

The categories of structures and damages are based off of the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which the United States' National Weather Service uses for measuring the strength of tornadoes.

A screenshot image of the project Surveyor. It shows a digital graphic of a journal overlayed in front of a brown house with trees behind it, as well as a tree on the left side and a lamppost on the right, and a journal icon in the bottom left. The journal has multiple checkboxes for options that can be selected, each option relating to properties of a tree. The journal also has tabs on the right for navigation between pages, and left and right icons as well as a home icon to assist with navigation. It is all in a simple lined, cell-shaded style. A screenshot image of the project Surveyor showing a blueprint with a house on the left side. The house is tan and one-story with some physical damage to the structure. On the rigth side of the blueprint is a list of the damage to the house and a magnifying glass icon. The blueprnt is in front of a neighborhood with multiple houses and trees in the background. It is all in a simple, lined, cell-shaded style.

Contributions:

    Full development of the project including:

  • Design/Ideation
  • Level Design
  • UI Design
  • Scripting
  • Illustration
  • User Testing
  • Sound Design

Development:

This game began development as part of my Bachelor's Essay project at College of Charleston over the period of an academic year. I developed the project on my own, with Dr. Sarah Schoemann overseeing.

I ran user testing scenarios with my classmates which allowed me to iterate on and improve both the gameplay loop and the interface.

The most significant obstacle to this project was simply the lack of time to work on it, as I was also taking a full course load and working a job at the time. After graduation I took a brief break from the project, but I have returned to working on it in an effort to add more levels and improve gameplay.

View an essay on the project's design and development (that also acts as its design document) here

  • Engine: Unity Engine
  • Scripting: C#
  • Illustration: ibisPaint X
An image composed of multiple sketches of a journal interface. The sketches on the left are on paper and uncolored and the ones on the right are digital and colored. They show different variations of th journal interface, all designed to look like a notebook. An image composed of six different digital drawings of the same different house in a tan color in a 2 by 3 grid. The drawings in the left column are lined and the ones in the right column are unlined. The drawings in the top row are not shaded, the ones in the middle row are cell-shaded, and the ones on the bottom row are shaded in a realistic style.