Arizona Sunshine (Flatscreen)
System Designer
Unity Featured Contributions
Buddy
One of my primary areas of ownership is the companion systems for Buddy, the dog. In VR, a companion feels present through proximity and physical space. On flatscreen, that same sense of partnership has to be communicated entirely through behaviour, animation, and AI decision-making.
I focused on designing Buddy to feel like a genuine ally: situationally aware, never in the way, and visibly useful when the player chooses to engage him. The goal was a companion that players notice when he helps, but never notice when he does not get in the way.
Locomotion
VR locomotion and flatscreen locomotion serve different audiences with fundamentally different expectations. Physical hand tracking gives VR players a direct relationship with their movement that a thumbstick simply cannot replicate by default.
I iterated on the player movement to feel native on a controller while preserving the weight and momentum that defines the original experience. The target was a movement system that flatscreen players can pick up immediately and that veteran Arizona Sunshine players still recognise as the same game.
Still in Progress
This project is active and ongoing. I continue to iterate on existing systems, look for gaps in the flatscreen experience, and prototype new solutions to close the distance between the VR original and the flatscreen version. There is a lot of design space left to explore and my focus is on building systems that make the flatscreen version a first-class product rather than a straight port.
Under Non-Disclosure Agreement
Specific system designs, gameplay footage, implementation details, and project materials cannot be shared publicly at this stage. I am happy to discuss my work at a high level and talk through the design thinking behind my contributions without breaching my NDA.