Released: (18/12/24)
This was an applied project, with the goal of artistically exploring the 7 Stages of Grief, to help players to understand and work through the feelings and emotions connected to the loss of someone/something close to you.
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Development Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Role: Technical Design
Team Size: 3
Project Pipeline: 14 weeks
What Did I contribute?
My contributions:
- Developer tools
- Gameplay Mechanics
- Chaos physics
- Shaders
See You Tomorrow
Programming:
Developer Tools:
Developer tool created to aid in the quick tagging of objects that should get different materials added to them. A mechanic in the project fades in colours when players surpass levels, this meant that at runtime materials needed to change. This was done globally via tagging specific objects in scene for specific colours. To make this quicker and to mitigate risk of inputting wrong tags. This tool displays the colour and button and applies this tag over all selected actors. Finally the script shows the colour applied to those objects.
Gameplay Mechanics:
The core mechanic that the game revolves around is picking up, throwing, placing and playing with physics objects, attached to a physics handle. Part of my goal was to create different dynamics with one mechanic, referring to the MDA Framework.
GIF showcasing the pickup and throw mechanic prototype for the player.
Initial picture of production Timeline in week 1.
Initial picture of production Timeline in week 1.
Colour Changing Mechanic:
To simulate the player working through the stages of grief, they unlocked more colours in the world upon completion of that stage.
We had to design a system capable of applying this independently for objects but also controlled by one bit of code. This had to be done so that we could get variation in shades and combine colours fading in together at different times.
Chaos Physics:
Chaos physics were used as transitions and a gameplay mechanics, within the Anger and final levels. The mechanic measured how much damage had been dealt and then allowed the player to progress if that threshold had been met.
Shaders:
The following Images are of various other documentation throughout the project. The first three images are of a risk assessment done for the project and relative to the projects needs and potential realistic issues, the first image shows the matrix that is used to calculate the risk of the issues that appear in the next two images. The final two pictures are of a data collection form made for gathering opinions and views on the game during testing sessions. Players were asked to fill these out so that we could update and make the game more balanced and fun. The Data collection form was split into different sections: Controls, Dialogue, Rating etc.
