Code Tycoon, developed by Gossamer Games and Okta, is a fun game about succeeding in the tech world! Take on the role of a junior developer in a fast-paced office making… something. It seems like none of your coworkers are actually sure what you’re all supposed to be working on, but they are relying on you to take be the star employee that takes it to the next level nonetheless! Balance your workload with your coworkers’ antics to help the company upgrade to a bigger office and release a successful flagship product.

Once playable for free in-browser, Code Tycoon is now retired… but I will provide a basic overview of the game below.

MY JOB:

Okta provided character designs and a color palette, and I assisted in their implementation into the game. I used Photoshop and Illustrator to format the pieces of the character puppets (i.e. hands, feet, torso, hair) so they would animate cleanly as 2D character sprites in Unity. I also prepared them to be tinted different colors by the game engine, allowing the player to customize their character in a way that optimized the game’s file size.

Welcome to your first day! Emily from HR will give you a tour of the office.

ABOUT MY WORKFLOW:

I was solely responsible for designing all 3D models in the game. I used Maya to model and UV unwrap custom models, then imported those into Unity and created materials for them there. I also assembled both environments for the game’s two levels in Unity by hand.

Okta mostly desired a clean color-blocked aesthetic, but I also used Photoshop to create any textures that I needed. This was most commonly for the various motivational posters hanging around the office space.

MY JOB:

In the Ping Pong scenes, I contributed to formatting art assets that were provided by Okta as well as internal playtesting/bug fixing for the minigame.

LEVEL UP

Help the company survive its first product launch, and it will move to a bigger office and give you a promotion!

CODING LOOPS

When the player sits at their desk to work, they can choose what to focus on by submitting “Commits” to different tasks.

The player will need to balance the demands of the CEO as well as the interests of their coworkers; angering the CEO will get them fired, but angering the other employees will make the company go under. Yikes!

MY JOB:

In these sequences, I contributed to formatting art assets that were provided by Okta as well as playtesting and bug fixing.

BEHIND THE SCENES