Little Tinkerer is a virtual reality (VR) tile-based puzzle game. Drag-and-drop tiles onto the grid and guide your character to uncover four hidden stars.

This project was developed as part of an internship class, where I worked in a team of 2 under the guidance of one of our professors and was tasked with building a VR game. Although we both had experience working on games, neither one of us had previously worked in VR. We had to rethink how our existing knowledge could translate into a more immersive and physically interactive world.

I was the programmer and puzzle designer for Little Tinkerer. Designing puzzles for a VR environment required thinking about them in a much different way, as a virtual world introduces unique opportunities and constraints that do not exist in other games. Rather than simply adapting existing puzzle mechanics, I wanted to design puzzles that took advantage of VR's physicality.

This led to a drag-and-drop tile system where players physically pick up and place tiles on a grid. Players also control a small character who moves around on the grid. This adds another layer of spatial reasoning and allows players to engage with the puzzle as both a participant within the world and as someone manipulating it from the outside. Overall, by focusing on interaction design and player experience, I aimed to create mechanics that felt natural, fun, and suited for a VR world.