Personal Project, 4 weeks
Unreal, Blueprint
“Wait!” is a story-telling based game that about social anxiety.It simulates the tension, uneasiness and anxiety we feel when we are in a public space, the stares we feel from others.
The game also gives a reason for this anxiety: it is not that others are staring at us, but that we are staring at ourselves. At the end of the game, players need to let go of their excess self-consciousness and discover the specific person behind the imaginary gaze.
Project
Tools
About
01
Game Demo
* The game has sound effect, please open the sound :)
02
Storyline
Start from home
In public environment,
we imagine...
The inner world
Self-Breakthrough
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Start from home:
Players will start the game with their home. At this time, the outside environment is still the real world environment, players can walk to the door, the door will automatically open and enter the next level of space.
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Imagination:
Players will be in an imaginary social space, close to the audiences, will hear their criticism toward players, and monitor players' every move.
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The inner world:
How do we think people will judge themselves? Based on appearance, voice, educational background, nationality, work, or...
In this section I set the puzzle of how to open the door. I want to make players feel their social anxiety become bigger and bigger when they cross the doors, therefore the door will be harder and harder to open. At first, the door will auto open, after two doors, they need to click to open, and for the last two door, they have to open and drug to open.
And for the last door space, where many moniter characters star at players, we cannot go to next level by go through the door in front of players. Players need to walk backwards, which has the metaphor of them crumbling under social pressure.
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Self-Breakthough
Sometimes, the anxiety may because it is not that others are staring at us, but that we are staring at ourselves. At the end of the game, players need to let go of their excess self-consciousness and discover the specific person behind the imaginary gaze.
03
Technique
Partical Effect
I use the Niagara System of Unreal with the dissolve material function to control the particle effect that realistic 3D style character model turn to the unlit style character.
*Click the picture to check the detail
* Niagara System
* Spawn Niagara System and control material parameter based on timeline
* Dissolve material with parameter
* Final Effect
Break the mirror
The mirror uses the planar reflection and is generated uniform fracture with fracture mode. I attached a sphere collider to the right hand of the player's avatar that, when it overlaps the mirror, creates a force field that causes the mirror to shatter.
When the players hits the mirror 3 times, their avatar will show the real form. To show the avatar in the mirror, I used the third-person templete and bound the camera on avatar's head bone to create the first-person perspective.
* Spawn the force field
* Fructure Mode
* Third-person perspective to First-person perspective
* Final Effect
04
Future Dev
Try VR
I tried to use VR for this project at the beginning, but gave up because the game frame is lagging with VR equipment. One of the reason could be I set a lot of dynamic lights and I didn’t want to sacrifice the rendering effect. Also, at first the project is not created in VR mode.
Add Loading Scene
Because some scenes have complex light setting, they take a while to loading. Adding loading scene could reduce the ngative experiences due to delays.
Add dynamic UI
This project do not have a clear storyline, which is what I want at beginning. After I show the work to others, some said it's a little bit hard to figure out the door opening puzzels , maybe adding dunamic UI could help player to solve puzzel. If players try many times, hints about how to open the door could appear.