Bill Bones Island

Bill Bones Island is an open-world adventure game. Explore the tropical island either on foot, by car or even by plane! The map features various landmarks ranging from mountains, rivers, waterfalls, bridges to hiking trails, arenas, ramps, and numerous buildings.

You can play the prototype yourself, just click here to download the game for Windows.

I developed the game purely for learning purposes. In fact, curiosity was the main motivation for this project. It first started with a simple sketch, which I later recreated in 3D using Cinema 4D. After importing the map into Unity, I started to populate the island with vegetation and other game elements. Nearly all 3D assets were created by myself.

The vision was to create a map that not only provides interesting landmarks from every perspective (both ground and air), but also invites players to explore the world for themselves. The island is therefore very spacious and offers both large and small things to discover, such as mountains, hiking trails, bridges, caves, a lighthouse, wind turbines, a waterfall, a cabin in the woods or flying balloons.

Of course, a lot of programming was necessary to bring the world to life. Although my programming skills were limited, I tried to make the best out of it. A few tutorials later, I was able to walk (and jump) on my island in first-person! Walking is still a bit jerky, but at least possible.

Next on the schedule were the vehicles. I first started with the airplane, because I already created the 3D model. However, programming realistic aircraft physics turned out to be more difficult than I thought. After the first airplane floated through the air more like a zeppelin, I decided to postpone airplanes to the successor of the game :)

Fortunately, I was more successful with the car. The first car drove almost perfectly, was controllable and could even brake. The driving behavior was influenced by physics and the car was even able to jump over obstacles!

Unfortunately, the development of the game ends here. Probably I shifted my attention toward Denora, my next 3D game. Although Bill Bones Island never made it to the video game store, I at least learned a lot about video game production!