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XATO
INTENTION
Implementing AI and exploring survival horror genre
DESCRIPTION
In an age when a disease called Xato has affected the whole world, only the rare Chronos vaccine can save lives.
Your daughter has the disease, and you should look for this vaccine.
DURATION
Softwares
2-3 week
Unreal Engine 4
GENRE
Survival-Horror
PLATFORM
PC
I always like to keep in mind that every project has to teach me a new experience, so I decided to explore the dark paths I had not yet taken.
Significant changes that made this project different from previous works were implementing AI and having a partner to solve puzzles, which had to be combined with Narrative Design. The level was highly linear, so this reduced the player's freedom in exploring the environment.
One of my goals was to achieve a sense of fear that I tried to create with the help of gameplay sequences and events.
After defining my mechanics and intentions, I started to draw sketches of the space with the necessary coordination with the story. I quickly transferred it to Unreal to have a more accurate sense of space. I defined the area and the paths with simple shapes. Then I defined story events and tried to connect the locations. I tried to use a variety of locations and themes to differentiate them from each other in the player's mind. Using references at this stage helped me a lot. At the same time, I was thinking about designing puzzles, and I decided to create a theory for cooperative puzzles with a little study of other games. This theory helped me to strengthen the relationship between father and son.
As I mentioned, I wanted to make a feeling of fear, so I tried to use light more purposefully. There are bright lights in the city, and zombies run away from them. With this idea, in addition to the sense of inherent security of lighting in the horror game, I gave the player an incentive to keep these lights on.
I knew that the path I had chosen for myself was costly, so at the first opportunity, even without fully implementing the events, I showed the level to a friend to get feedback, and at that moment, I realized that the level was not fun. There were many reasons for this, and I tried to identify them. Some of them were related to mechanics, so I changed them a bit. The next serious problem was that the level was short and boring. I could not make it longer because it would increase my production cost. After studying puzzle design, I decided to increase the number of puzzles and their complexity. It increased gameplay time and made it more interesting. I also created a slight sense of freedom in this linearity by giving meaning to the player's decision by a side quest.
The project had a lot to learn. If I had the time, I would like to work on world-building and tell the story through the environment. I also added details to the blockout to make it more believable. And the most important thing that I underestimated is Game Feel. It costs a lot to upgrade.
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