MeloDash
(Narrative Design, Game Design, Programming, Project Management)
| Concept: | A fast-paced rhythm game blending bullet hell mechanics with musical gameplay |
| Story: | Play as Estella, a young witch saving her town from chaotic magical witches. |
| Gameplay: | Dodge, shoot, and groove to the beat with vibrant visuals and catchy music. |
| Appeal: | A spellbinding experience for rhythm game and bullet hell enthusiasts. |
Team Credits:
Shaun Dinkin- Game Designer, Programmer
Vincent Huidrom- Game Designer, Artist, Sound Designer
Arjun Madhavan- Game Designer
Julian Esposito- Game Designer, Sound Designe
Role
Game Designer
Defined the game’s vision, crafting a harmonious blend of rhythm elements and bullet-hell chaos
Designed the core gameplay loop, ensuring it was challenging yet accessible.
The following showcases the journey of creation—from the functionality phase, where we test the idea and the mechanics took shape, to the usability phase, where the experience is fine-tuned, and finally to the aesthetic phase, where the magic of visuals and polish brings everything to life
From testing the tutorial to a wall of text (not our proudest moment) to finally an interactive playable tutorial which was well received.
Analyzed tester feedback to refine features and added quality-of-life improvements that enhanced the overall experience
Project Manager
Navigated the stormy seas of inconsistent team participation by redistributing tasks, keeping backups, and solving issues while communicating. Used Jira to track progress, estimate user stories, and prioritize tasks, keeping the team focused on delivering an enchanting player experience.
Organized weekly meetings to align the team, ensuring everyone was casting spells from the same book. Created playtest surveys and playtest reports based on the feedback received.
Programmer
● Integrated art, animation, and UI elements to ensure a cohesive, polished experience.
● Rhythm System & Dynamic Enemy Spawner:
○ Created a designer-friendly, dynamic enemy spawner synchronized to
the game’s rhythm, allowing easy customization and adjustment.
Using a simple and intuitive CSV file setup, players can design dynamic enemy spawns with precision. The system allows players to define beats, timeframes, and spawn points for both normal enemies and destructible enemies directly in Excel. Thus, any song can be used in the game as long as the timestamps are known.
The LoadBeatTimestamps method reads data from a CSV file to organize when and where enemies spawn in the game. It processes each line of the file to extract the timestamp (when the beat occurs) and the spawner locations for both regular and destructible enemies. This information is bundled into a BeatData object, which is then stored in a list for the game to use during gameplay. This method ensures enemies appear on time and in sync with the music, creating an engaging rhythm-based experience while making it easy to adjust spawns by editing the CSV file.
The SpawnEnemies method ensures that enemies are spawned correctly based on the current beat in the game. For each beat, it retrieves the spawner indices for regular and destructible enemies from the BeatData list. It then loops through these indices, verifying they’re valid, and triggers the appropriate enemy spawners to deploy enemies at the right time. Any invalid indices are flagged with error messages to assist with debugging. This keeps gameplay synced with the rhythm while maintaining clear error tracking for spawner issues.
○ Made sure the enemies didn’t just attack—they grooved.
Example of the Dynamic Enemy Spawner System and how it looks in action inside the Unity editor Implemented a scoring system that rewards players based on their performance—because nothing feels better than a high score (except maybe dodging a perfectly-timed enemy wave).
Tester
Bug Testing: Rooted out bugs like a pro exterminator, no glitch was safe.
QA Testing: Ensured every mechanic, feature, and rhythm hit the right notes without missing a beat.
Functional Testing: Verified that every broomstick flew, every projectile grooved, and every scoring system calculated flawlessly.
Logging and Tracking: Diligently logged and tracked issues to ensure they were resolved
Using Excel, we tracked the specific lanes where players took damage, how often it occurred, and the exact timestamps for each instance to analyze later when assessing feedback.