Swim Up!

A light-hearted mobile title oriented towards the casual gamers, Swim Up was designed to be as simple to pick up as possible. The interface reflects that, keeping the number of available branches to a minimum and letting the user get into the game in a single tap, all the while sticking to a water-inspired theme in the visual, sound and animation departments. The Shop section was finely tuned to entice the user to collect the unlockable characters and check out their properties, and so was the “Game Over” screen which featured the screenshot-and-share functionality popular among leading games in the genre.

Modelling: As an accessible endless runner, Swim Up required extensive optimizations so it can run on low-end mobile hardware. In addition to 4 pick-up props, I created 11 unique chunk models (each with a dedicated night/self-illuminated version), as well as modeled and animated 33 distinct fish models.

Textures: In line with the model-level optimizations, textures were packed into atlases – there is one for chunks, and two for fish textures.

Pipeline: Levels are generated in-engine. I imported the models, created materials and prefabs, as well as set up collision boxes. I designed the scene lighting (with color shifts depending on the loaded chunk). I configured the post processing package (Color Grading). I created particle effects that corresponded to each chunk theme. In the end, I created a 3-color gradient shader that fades background color based on the loaded chunk.