Project Overview
Book of Dreams is a 2D pixel-art platformer built from scratch in Unity, designed specifically to strengthen gameplay fundamentals. Rather than relying on Unity's built-in character controller, everything was written custom — giving full control over movement feel and collision behaviour.
What I Built
- Custom 2D character controller — no Unity CharacterController, built on Rigidbody2D with manual collision resolution
- Enemy AI with patrol, detection, and attack states using a simple state machine
- Collision and hazard logic — spikes, pits, knockback, respawn
- Game-feel tuning — squash/stretch, jump buffering, coyote time, screen shake
Systems Highlight: Custom 2D Controller
Writing a custom controller instead of using Unity's built-in solution forced a deep understanding of 2D physics, collision layers, and movement edge cases. This foundation directly informed how I approach state management and input handling in all later projects.
Key Takeaway
Building from scratch is the fastest way to understand a system deeply. The patterns from this controller — state-driven behaviour, clear input → logic → output flow — show up directly in the multiplayer systems I built later.