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Zentera: A Voxel-Based Puzzle Platformer Made With A Custom C++ Engine

June 27, 2025

Embark on an adventure with Gori, a clever lizard-like creature, in this voxel-based puzzle platformer. Use his versatile tongue to push, pull, swing, and solve intricate dioramic puzzles in charming miniature voxel worlds. Gori wants to impress his beloved partner by bringing beautiful little trinkets from each level.

My Contributions: Lead Programmer | Particle System | Release Management | Sound Implementation | QA Process Improvements | Bug Reporting & Fixing

Engine/Tools: C++ | Custom Engine | Angelscript | FMOD

Team Size: 9 Programmers | 3 Designers | 4 Artists

Platforms: Windows | PlayStation 5

Duration: 8 Weeks (May 2025 - June 2025)

🐸 Zentera – A Voxel Puzzle Platformer!

Click here to visit our game page!

Click here to check out a video playthrough of the game!

Zentera is a third-person puzzle-platformer where players use an extendable tongue to pull crates, activate switches, and solve physics-based challenges. The game was developed in a custom engine using agile practices across multiple sprints. The project focused on pushing the boundaries of multidisciplinary collaboration—merging level design, programming, art, and sound into a cohesive player experience. With iterative feedback loops, rigorous QA processes, and multiple early access releases, Zentera evolved rapidly into a polished gameplay prototype showcased on itch.io.

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🔨 My Contributions

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🗂️ Leadership as PR Lead

What it Does: Served as the PR (Programming Representative) lead, taking on coordination and communication responsibilities across the team and with external stakeholders.

Key Features & Challenges:

• Acted as the primary point of contact for programming-related issues, ensuring clear communication between team members, producers, and instructors.
• Facilitated sprint planning, retrospectives, and standups by gathering status updates and aligning team priorities.
• Organized and led PR lead meetings, documented discussions, and helped adapt planning when challenges or scope changes arose.
• Provided transparency on task progress—regularly checking in with team members and maintaining awareness of overall project status.

Impact on the Game:

• Improved team organization and accountability, helping maintain a steady development pace.
• Reduced miscommunication between disciplines by centralizing updates and feedback.
• Enabled faster identification of blockers and risks, allowing the team to address them proactively.

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🚀 Release Management

What it Does: Led the process of preparing and publishing Zentera on itch.io, including coordinating page creation, setting minimum specs, and managing marketing assets.

Key Features & Challenges:

• Coordinated with the team to add all members as contributors for direct page editing.
• Collected and curated best screenshots, ensuring coverage of all levels and characters.
• Created the credits table for clarity and compactness.
• Defined and communicated hardware requirements after discovering engine limitations on specific GPUs.
• Contributed to trailer content by creating unique scenes, like the heart effect between characters, to enhance marketing appeal.

Impact on the Game:

• Ensured a professional online presence.
• Facilitated early access updates, reflecting player feedback through changelogs.
• Improved visibility and player onboarding with detailed instructions, visuals, and system requirements.

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✨ Particle System

What it Does: Developed a versatile particle system using EnTT ECS and integrated it with Angelscript for artists and designers to use flexibly in-engine.

Key Features & Challenges:

• Modeled functionality after Unity’s Particle System for familiarity (e.g., shape modules, color gradients).
• Supported object pooling to drastically reduce performance costs—fixing issues like laggy footsteps particles.
• Integrated particles directly into gameplay elements (e.g., portals, doors, fire, waterfalls).
• Required close collaboration with artists to match aesthetic needs.

Impact on the Game:

• Enhanced visual feedback, bringing scenes to life with dust, fire, water, and interactive VFX.
• Improved player experience with immediate and responsive visuals, aligning with puzzle outcomes.

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🔊 Sound Effects Implementation

To see and hear the sound effects, click here!

What it Does: Implemented FMOD sound events into gameplay scripts, synchronizing audio cues with actions like crate movement, levers, pressure plates, and player tongue interactions.

Key Features & Challenges:

• Collaborated with designers to gather and organize a comprehensive sound list tailored to gameplay.
• Integrated FMOD events into the Angelscript codebase, aligning sounds with visual actions.
• Added footsteps, tongue SFX, environmental ambience, and interactive sounds to levels.

Impact on the Game:

• Provided immersive audio feedback for all major interactions.
• Elevated the game’s atmosphere and reinforced puzzle-solving moments.

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✅ QA Process Improvements

What it Does: Helped establish and improve the team’s QA processes to ensure faster, clearer bug tracking and resolution.

Key Features & Challenges:

• Co-created a Discord bug-report channel to supplement GitHub issues—boosting accessibility and response speed.
• Established a structured written QA process (review buddies, build showcases, vision holder roles).
• Provided detailed bug reports with reproduction steps and visual references.

Impact on the Game:

• Increased efficiency in identifying, communicating, and resolving bugs.
• Ensured critical issues were prioritized and fixed within tight sprint schedules.

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🐛 Bug Reporting & Fixing

What it Does: Proactively identified, reported, and resolved bugs affecting gameplay, visuals, and performance.

Key Features & Challenges:

• Discovered and documented high-impact issues like missing gate elements, lighting mismatches, and crate collision errors.
• Fixed performance-breaking bugs (e.g., particle systems causing frame drops due to excessive entity spawning).
• Reviewed and tested PRs, giving feedback and suggesting improvements across disciplines.

Impact on the Game:

• Improved gameplay stability and experience.
• Reduced blockers for designers and artists by keeping builds playable and polished.

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🎯 Overall Impact

My contributions provided core systems and processes integral to the team’s success:

• Delivered essential technical features (particle system and sound integration) present in every level and central to gameplay.
• Significantly improved QA processes, ensuring bugs were identified, reported, and resolved efficiently.
• Led the release effort, from minimum specs identification to polished itch.io presentation, enabling timely early access updates.
• Acted as a bridge between disciplines—aligning programming, art, design, and marketing efforts for cohesive project delivery.