Description
The final game prototype made for my Master of Design.
This demo was made in the exploration of narrative game mechanics.
This demo was made in the exploration of narrative game mechanics.
To read my thesis click here.
A father receives a mysterious parcel and letter, he sets out through a nautical undersea world to find his lost daughter in this first person walking sim.
This prototype takes the ideas explored in the previous prototypes and uses them to make one level of a game using narrative game mechanics.
This prototype takes the ideas explored in the previous prototypes and uses them to make one level of a game using narrative game mechanics.
Information
• Genre: Walking Sim
• Platform: PC, Mac
• Engine: Unity
• Status: Unreleased
• Role: Game Designer & Developer
Highlights
• Level Design and pacing for storytelling moments.
• Making all the 3D assets and and animations.
• Custom shaders using unity's Shader Graph.
All the materials and effects in game were made this way.
All the materials and effects in game were made this way.
Feature Breakdown – Dissolve Shader
The main gameplay mechanic is a strange beacon like device that can emit a sphere on use. This can be used to clear paths by pushing rocks out of the way, and interact with/trigger storytelling moments.
The beginning of the prototype and the end mimic each other in the intended use of this game mechanic, revealing a new twist on the story to the player.
To make this effect a dissolve shader was made that took two materials and blended between them using a sphere collider. A lot of work was put into getting the transition between two materials looking right so they felt like a single element. It also had to work with the other custom shaders I had made.
There were a lot of edge cases that needed addressing where models and materials where hot swapped in/out or turned on/off, this in combination with the dissolve effect sold the effect.
