The Mighty Hooker

The Mighty Hooker was my first shipped game, built in one month from an empty document to a finished, released build as part of my game design master's degree.

The scope was deliberately small: the goal wasn't to make something big, it was to prove I could take a game through every stage of production, design, implementation, and release, on a tight, fixed timeline.

It's a skill-based platformer with an 8-bit aesthetic, built around a grappling mechanic tied to specific interactable objects placed through the levels. Rather than a free-swing tool, the hook is a deliberate obstacle: each level is built around where hook points sit, turning traversal into a precision skill challenge.

Levels were built in collaboration with a friend, with both of us contributing to layout and pacing decisions. Since level content and gameplay systems were being built at the same time, a big part of the challenge was learning a workflow that let features ship without blocking level design, and vice versa, a process I've carried and improved into every project since.

Built in Unity, this was also where I picked up practical, hands-on skills in spritesheet-driven animation and tilemap-based level construction.

Art by ansimuz.