Where the Cookies At?
Brackeys Game Jam 2025.2
- Platform: PC
- Engine: Unity 6.2
- Team Size: 5
- Duration: 7 Days
- Game Jam Page
Brief
Where the Cookies At? is a stealth game made for Brackeys Game Jam 2025.2. The player must sneak to eat cookies without being caught by the mother NPC, who patrols the level and reacts to the player’s movements. My primary contribution was designing and implementing the NPC behavior, as well as adding UI interaction feedback for the cookies.
Project Goals
Build a playable stealth prototype for the Brackeys Game Jam 2025.2 that focused on NPC behavior, cookie interaction, and player feedback. The goal was to create a short but complete loop where the player sneaks and tries to eat all the cookies while avoiding the mother NPC, supported by clear UI, patrol logic, and detection states.
Primary responsibilities
- NPC State Machine (patrol, detection, catch, cooldown)
- Field of View & Player Detection
- Visual Feedback (icons, exclamation/question marks)
- Cookie Interaction UI & Counter
Other hats
- Gameplay Scripting & Integration
- Bug Fixing & Polish
Gameplay
My Contributions
1. NPC Patrol Movement
Built the NPC’s patrol system using the NavMesh, with flexible patrol patterns. The mother could either ping-pong (1 → 2 → 3 → 2 → 1) or loop (1 → 2 → 3 → 1 → 2 → 3) along waypoints.
Helping the designer
Beyond implementing the NPC behavior itself, I focused on making the patrol system fully configurable without touching any code. In a game jam with a tight deadline, the Level Designer needed to be able to place patrol routes, tweak timings, and iterate quickly, so I built a set of custom Unity Inspector components that exposed all the relevant controls directly in the editor.
Each point along a patrol route is a Patrol Spot, a standalone component I created with its own Inspector settings. The designer can set exactly how many seconds the Mother NPC idles at that spot before moving on, and customize the editor gizmo's color and radius so patrol points are easy to identify and distinguish in the scene view at a glance.
The route itself is managed by a Mother Patrol Controller component, where the designer assigns any number of Patrol Spots in order and configures two key behaviors: the Patrol Type, either Linear (the NPC cycles through spots in order: 1 → 2 → 3 → 1 → 2 → 3…) or Ping Pong (the NPC reverses direction at each end: 1 → 2 → 3 → 2 → 1 → 2 → 3…), and the Looping behavior, whether the patrol runs indefinitely, stops after a set number of cycles, or plays through only once. This gave the designer full creative control over the NPC's movement with no programming required.
2. Field of View Detection
Implemented a field of view system that detects the player within a radius and angle (e.g., 5m at 90°). After 0.5s of visibility, the player is considered caught, leading to game over.
3. Player Detection Feedback
Added visual cues when the mother detects the player: an exclamation mark animates above her head, she rotates to face the player, and her movement halts while she is in the detection state.
4. Cookie Interaction UI
Improved cookie interaction feedback by displaying an E-button prompt when near cookies, plus a cookie counter that decreases from 13 to 0 with smooth fade-in/out transitions.
Play our Game! :)
Post Mortem
The jam showed the importance of scope control. Even simple interactions like grabbing a cookie required UI, counters, HUD elements, and sound effects, which added more work than expected. While ambitious, the project reinforced how a smaller scope with more mechanics can sometimes deliver stronger results. Still, the team delivered a fun, cohesive prototype under time pressure.
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