Sankofa

Overview

Sankofa is a 3D exploration adventure game that teaches players about the history and mythology of the Akan people of Ghana. "Sankofa" translates to "go back and get it" and is often associated with not forgetting the past and remembering your roots. This is traditionally done in the form of stories, and like any good story, this game has some elements that are factual and others that are more fantastical and mysterious.

My Contribution

I worked on Sankofa while in a paid internship for the Institute of Virtual Environments and Computer Games at UC Irvine. I was one of the lead programmers for the project. Some of the elements I developed: menu and chat UI, scene management, player character controller, villager AI and animation controllers, and various game mechanics. The game is now finished, here is a link to the website page.

What I Learned

I learned a lot about what being on a large team is like. At peak times we had around 15 different people working on the project at once. So knowing who to go to for what and everyone's roles was very important to keep working well. Additionally, this was the first game I worked on that had tons of high quality art, animations, and sounds, so I got great experience working through the various organization and optimization problems because of this.

Yam Game Demo

This is an earlier version of the game. But it serves well as a way to introduce the player to Anansi the spider, a fabled trickster, who always has a good story to tell (and a trick up his sleeve).

Elmina

While interning, I also helped restore an older game that allows you to explore the architecture and history of the Elmina slave castle. I was responsible for cleaning up files and scenes, syncing it to our perforce server, implementing the UI, adding Tobii Eye tracker support, adding functionility in some areas to switch between old world appearance and modern times.

Download Page