Jumping in the Dark

Personal Project

Build Date: 04/01/22

Jumping in the Dark was the result of the #Gameaweek Challenge. In order to encourage rapid prototyping and finishing those prototypes, After receiving the theme Death is Useful I developed a 2D side scroller with my main focus on understanding and experimenting with Unreal's Lighting.

Working Hours: 24 Hours Total

Engine Used: Unreal Engine 4

Play it here

Trailer

Challenges faced throughout the Project:

Having a week to work on this project is a hard task to do. I found myself unable to balance other life responsibilities and working on the game. This resulted in an almost 3-day sprint in order to finish the game on time. Properly planning an idea is essential to having a successful finished product. I am very proud of the work I completed during the week. Realizing that I could have added more levels, and more unique puzzle ideas if I had planned more properly is a key takeaway from this project.

Document of my Brainstorming Idea

My initial thought was to jump right into engine to get the gameplay systems into a playable state. That playable state ended up being the final product due to the time constraints that I put on myself. If I did it differently I would've definitely created a more detailed document to be worked off of. I spent too much time trying to figure out the intention behind something, and not how it would all work together.

This was very much a learning experience, and while I am proud of the result I feel that the game is not unified under a single idea. Plotting out Design Pillars for the games I make going forward will be very helpful to ensure the game feels cohesive.

Key Mechanics:s

Implemented a Death Mechanic that allows the "dead body" to interact with certain objects. This was the main mechanic for the game.
Added a dialogue system to the game that allows the player's actions to trigger unique dialogue.
Tested and Implemented 6 Different Levels into the game with each level introducing a new mechanic. The goal was to slowly allow the player to learn how to interact with the world. Then prove mastery with the final level.