door

For my first game I wanted to take on something that was simple enough for me to do but hard enough that I actually learn some things. This project ticked a lot of those boxes. I have been having an absolute blast making it and can’t wait to share it.

The premise is simple. You start out at the exit but it is locked and requires three keys. You must find each of the three randomly located keys to unlock the door and escape. The catch is that you must do this all while being hunted by something. If you catch it in your flashlight before it catches you, keep it there. It cannot move while in the light. This can give you enough time to backup and run. If you keep it in the light for too long, you may anger it. Causing it to rush you at triple it’s normal speed. You will not outrun it!

Every key you pick up angers the creature. It will get faster and you will need to listen carefully for it’s whispers before it catches up with you. Your flashlight will drain over time and you can find up to 3 batteries randomly located around the maps key areas. If your flashlight battery reaches 0 you will not be able to stop it from coming towards you…

Flashlight

One of the first things I programmed was the flashlight and enemy. If the creature is in the light it will not move.

Buildlings

One of the first pieces I put together was the church. This is when I started work on audio clips for various terrains as well.

Testing

This is what the game looked like for a large portion of development. I had a wall, a tree and the creature. This is where I worked on the bulk of code. Item pickups, enemy ai, collisions, deaths and so on. 

Trees

The trees have been a bit of pain and still have some issues I hope workout. They have a lot of options to tweak and as of right now they render in a little weird sometimes during play.

Always following

Originally I had programmed the enemies AI entirely. This turned into quite a chore as more obstacles were added in. Luckily around this time I learned about unities navmesh agent and was able to convert it all over to that instead. Now I can bake the terrain with what is walkable or not.

Interiors

Piecing together props and interiors was pretty fun. If I do build another map for this game it will be indoor. 

Level Design

Never having built a map before for anything this was a little tricky. Getting the size right and the textures to not look completely terrible took some tweaking. 

Keys

Programming the keys took me longer than expected. I needed to have them random in their spawn and make sure they didn’t end up all spawning in one location.