Moo Moo
Move

Moo Moo Move is a casual arcade game about guiding chubby cows to safety across floating islands. UFOs, poachers, ice and more stand between the herd and their next meal. It's down to the player to get them there.

The project began as a 3rd-year university project, entered Tranzfuser 2017 (South Wales), won funding for continued development, and was released on Steam in 2019 as the first title from Mochi Mode, the studio I co-founded.

My role covered design and development across the full game: player character movement and ability mechanics, cow herding and grouping logic, UI design and implementation, overworld and level loading, save game states, and Steam API and achievements integration. I also designed core level mechanics including UFOs, bulls and bounce pads, handled level lighting throughout, and managed the Steam deployment and repository for release.

The system I'm proudest of is the cow herding logic. When the first cow enters a set radius around the player, it's allocated as the "king cow," which then dictates a forward direction pointing away from the player. A target location is calculated a set distance ahead of that direction, and every other cow entering the king cow's radius moves toward that same point. The result is a herd that holds together and doesn't constantly collide with itself. It went through several iterations before landing on this approach, but it held up well across the full game.

One system I'd revisit is fence avoidance. What shipped works, but it's not as clean as I wanted within the timeframe. I prototyped a two-collision approach: a tighter collider for the player, and a slightly inset one for the cows, so a player could get behind a herd bunched against a fence without clipping through it. Looking back, that approach was stronger than what shipped, and it's something I'd implement properly given the chance.