Neck 'n' Neck is a first-year project made for the course Game Production 1: Arcade Games, which tasked us with designing both a game and the alternative controller it would be played with. It was shown at the Gotland Game Conference 2019, where it was nominated for Best Exhibition and Best Arcade Experience and won The Innovation Award. It was later invited to exhibit at alt.ctrl.GDC 2020 in San Francisco, and was featured in a Gamasutra article.
It's a 2D two-player racing game where you race an opponent — as giraffes. Players move their giraffe's head up and down to dodge trees that slow them down and eat chilies for a speed boost, and can make their giraffe jump over ground obstacles.
The game is played by sitting on physical giraffe rigs we built ourselves and gripping the horns to move the head up and down, which is mirrored in-game; good timing and precision decide the race. Pulling the tail makes the giraffe jump.
Developed in Unity by a team of 6, I was 1 of 2 programmers and took the lead role — handling most of the gameplay systems and the local leaderboard, and contributing to the game's design with the whole group.