A COLLABORATIVE PROJECT

this was the eighth and final collaborative game project I made during my time studying at TGA. We had free reign when it came to the type of game we wanted to create but also what engine to use.

You play as a guardian of a lost civilization that has awoken and must now try to free the trapped spirits of your people. The game takes heavy inspiration from The Outer Wilds with a focus on exploration and gaining information to solve puzzles in the world.

It is made with Hazelight’s modified Unreal Engine 4.26 version, making use of Angelscript as well as blueprints. It was made by eleven students over eight weeks.

LEVEL OVERVIEW

Unreal engine + world partition + perforce = 😎

DESIGNING AN OPEN WORLD

  1. Player start

    The player had to at least know some basic controls since we tried to avoid any kind of text in the game, this is also the place the player will respawn each time they die, so it should be a place to reset and refocus.

  2. Waterfalls

    This portion of the map taught and tested the player when it came to the jumping, gliding, and long-press scan ability in the game. We knew that we wanted water to flow through the level and this was a striking way of introducing it. It also served as a great hazard since the player can’t swim.

  3. Poison crystals

    Another hazard was the purple/pink crystals that has a cloud of poison gas around them. This cloud was however only visible when the player used their scan ability. It served as a movement puzzle but also to teach the player that there is more to this world than meets the eye.

  4. Caves

    My brother Isak made these caves so I honestly don’t know too much about them, but they introduce a more “environment” way of thinking to the puzzles the player has to solve, so that’s cool I guess.

  5. Ruins

    The jewel of the level, made by yours truly. Here the player has to solve environmental puzzles, use critical thinking, and can enjoy some sweet door and elevator animations. There are also a few hidden secrets here that only the sharpest of minds can find.

  6. Tower

    This is the goal of the game, the final destination. A location blocked by a door and a passcode. The door can be opened at any time, the player only lacks the information to do so. That was a core part of the game and once the player had found this passphrase they will enjoy a tear-jerking ending cutscene (seeing my blueprint scripting will make you cry in horror).

PUZZLE MECHANICS

Trying to explain these without UI and dialog es muy mal.

REVEALING ELEMENTS

We wanted the world to have a “more than meets the eye” kind of feeling. So I built a scan ability that will reveal hidden elements such as poison gas and it also serves as a way to collect spirits that the player can use for extra jumps.

At first, we attempted to explain these mechanics to the player simply through murals out in the world since we wanted to avoid any kind of UI and text. But this was simply not feasible in the eight weeks we had to develop the game so we had to compromise on that point.

SHORT SCAN

A SCAN WITHIN A SCAN

The goal of the long scan was to show the player that this was a mechanic they always had access to, they simply didn’t know that it was there. They could then revisit previous areas with this newfound ability and reveal secrets that were otherwise hidden or perhaps reach places they couldn’t figure out how to reach before.

While this turned out to be outside the scope of what we had time to do, I still created the mechanic and it is still required to solve certain puzzles so the player still needs to learn this before they can progress to certain areas. The open-ended nature of our game meant the player might have just the experience we sought to create while others won’t.

LONG SCAN

ENVIRONMENT PATTERNS

The patterns in the game, much like the long scan were meant to be hidden in plain sight on objects like pillars, walls, and buildings. Their purpose was to merely look like decorative etching that the player would ignore, but once they learned about the way these patterns could be used to unlock things they would look at the world with a new pair of eyes.

We did manage to add some collectibles to the game and some of them are unlocked through hidden patterns such as these. It was also a great mechanic to have together with hidden objects, so it requires the player to have knowledge of how to unlock both.

PATTERN

GAME JUICE  

I would drink it.

“GIVE IT SOME OOMPH!”

One of my favorite things about Unreal Engine is that I can through blueprints create the mechanics of the game without any deep knowledge of programming. I can also give simple things like doors that “game juice” that actually makes it feel good to open that door. By adding things like camera shake, cool animations, sounds, and effects. Below are some examples of me doing this in our game.

Right click to pan and Ctrl + Mousewheel to scroll

“MAKE IT NICE TO USE”

As soon as I realize that I will need to reuse or modify a blueprint several times I take the time to make it easy to do so. This was especially important in this game project since it wouldn’t just be me placing and configuring actors, but our artists as well. Below is an example of a lamp in the game that first is driven by an enumerator so that its different modes can easily be selected. Then there are other settings that relate to that mode, as previewed in the video. Creating clean and customizable blueprints like this to improve my iteration speed and quality is something I often do and enjoy doing as well!