Unreal Game - My Sweet Children

You are the father of two children, Hansel and Gretel. Sending them alone in the woods during a famine and modern ice age was a mistake, but can you rescue them before it's too late?

I was thrilled to jump into Unreal this semester to fully develop a short first-person game. Having very little experience with it beforehand, I was able to greatly improve my comfort and skills in the software. I used Unreal Engine 5 which proved to be both a blessing (incredible new features, cleaner UI) and a curse (limited documentation, issues with my plug-in).

I began with pre-vis of the level: writing my narrative, greyboxing the environment, finding a color scheme, sketching out designs, etc. This allowed me to have a jumping point before diving into Unreal. I then began modeling and downloading assets for my level. Creating the gingerbread house was my favorite part since I was able to design a creepy but pleasing shaped house. I was able to save time by using trees generated by SpeedTree. It was important to me that I delegated my time properly for the scope I was trying to accomplish. I was more interested in the technical development in the project but had to insure the visuals could stand up on their own. Another way I did this was by using the Weather Machine plug-in which generated the snow in the level.

After getting models into the level, it was time to add materials. I always had imagined shading would be the same as texturing - UV unwrapping, using Substance Painter, loading maps, etc. However, creating node-based materials in Unreal was a lot more fun than I thought! I thoroughly enjoyed applying a more technical mindset to an artistic portion of my game. For example, I learned how to get a material to only apply on the top of an object so I could get snow on my scene.

Now for the fun part - creating interactive mechanics for the game! First, I created a parent blueprint for food interaction. Using a static mesh and a box, I made it so walking near a food item would give you the option to eat it. I checked if it was a mushroom to affect your vision or if it was a body part in the later portion of the game. Next, I used post processing and tick to have the player's vision deteriorate over time (ie: vignette closing in). This would reset as the player ate food. I also added a piece mechanic where the player could collect pieces of paper to get a clue about where their kids are. This allowed for lots of work in designing HUDs. I absolutely loved working with blueprints as it was a highlight of the project.

On top of all this, I made sure to have users test the game before completing it. I documented their feedback and made lots of adjustments accordingly. One common comment was that the vignette blacked out your vision too fast - an oversight of mine from speedrunning the game. I was able to fix this to allow for a more playable pace of the game.

One major issue I had at the end of the process was running my executable of the game. I was able to package it successfully, but I'm having issues with the plug-in and its effects. This is something I will work on early next semester to have a playable game for others to enjoy!