Lucid Samurai
A dreamlike action-adventure game, made in Unreal, in which players learn to face their fears
My Roles
Level Design:
I Designed and implemented three levels for the semester Project, including the largest level, the office building.
I also Designed an expandable Blueprints tool for the rest of the team that would manipulate any game actor in a number of ways (spawn, move, scale, etc.).
Combat Blueprints
I designed the aI for the boss character and contributed to the design of the combo system and the general enemy AI.
I also helped Contribute to the general combat design, helping to merge creative differences on the team.
Animation Blueprints
I implemented all of the animations for the player, the fish, and the boss enemies. I used animation Blueprints and some clever use of blend spaces to overcome some technical difficulties we had regarding the animations.
Narrative Design
I Designed the overall plot, Wrote all of the dialogue, performed some voice acting, and implemented the audio and text pop-ups in game.
Level Breakdown
Office First Floor
this level starts outside a huge, barren office building. The first half of the level is a magnified version of a reception desk. The Polite and cursory Social Interaction with a receptionist might seem trivial to most, but it is terrifying to Lucy.
Upon entering the building, a bell begins ringing. This Bell, the goal of the first half of the level, is framed by the window of light behind it (Top-Left) to provide both audio and visual cues for progress.
Entering the building also triggers A combat encounter (Top-Middle), whose spawn Point is also a cue towards the bell. Going to the backside of the desk shows opened drawers (top-Right) that serve as stairs up to the Bell.
The Bell continues ringing until the player jumps down onto the bell's plunger, which will trigger another combat encounter on top of the desk (Bottom-Left). Once the encounter is finished, an elevator in the corner of the building opens and dings. In the elevator, the player gets a break from the combat while the doctor confers with Lucy (Bottom-Right). This narrative bit also foreshadows the boss battle of the game.
Office Second Floor
The second half of the level pits Lucy against one of the dreaded fears related to Social Anxiety: The communal workspace. All of the desks are piled together (Top-Left) to mimic an open office floorplan. The blue fog damages the player while they are in it. IT also plays a random voice line (Recorded by an expert & super talented VA) out of a series of inane small talk (e.g. "Workin' Hard or Hardly Workin, Am I right?").
The Goal of this floor is the water cooler, which is framed in a similar way to the bell on the first floor upon exiting the elevator. The Level starts out with two combat encounters (Bottom-Left) where the player has to balance fighting while also staying on the desks to avoid the small talk damage fog.
As the player approaches the water cooler, they set off a trigger that has some of the desks begin to float as platforms up to the water cooler (Bottom-Middle). One of the goals of this level was to incorporate some dynamism into the level objects. I created an expandable Blueprint system that handles this and the other dynamism found in the other levels.
Upon reaching the top of the water cooler, the player triggers one more combat encounter. Finishing that, the player jumps down onto the tap of the water cooler, which signifies Lucy conquering her fear at the most social location in an office. Thus, the small talk damaging fog is cleared and the "Fear Confronted" Pop-up appears.