The Picket
About:
Commissioned to be created as an demo, The Picket is a first-person horror game in Unreal Engine. Taking on the role of gameplay programmer and designer, I was responsible for creating the core gameplay mechanics alongside configuring technical elements such as lighting and general atmosphere. The Picket takes reference from a number of other horror games such as Five Nights at Freddy's, Hello Neighbour and We Harvest Shadows.
Initial Design Document
Interaction System
Making use of Unreal Engine's Interface blueprints alongside several tutorials, I was able to build a dynamic interaction system. This allowed for different behaviours and methods of interacting with objects alongside clear UI to improve the player experience and general immersion.
The biggest benefit of this system was just how dynamic and customizable it was, allowing for the quick creation of unique 'Interactables' which applied the Interaction System framework. As an additional benefit, workflow speed was increased due to the ease of creation of each new blueprint.
Game Manager - Scoring
Alongside being used for the survival game flow, the Game Manager also housed the logic used for the players ability to gain score through completing tasks. When completing a task, a function within the Game Manager would be called and an amount of money would be given to the player. This would then be displayed in the corner and is visible in both the menu and day complete screen.
From a Game Design perspective, I decided the scoring system became almost essential to help maintain player engagement and create a sense of accomplishment. The system also included 'ranks' which helped to easily gauge progress and 'gamified' the completion of various tasks, solidifying the overall game thematic of the player 'renovating' the home.
Game Manager - Windows
One of the main features of the game was surviving the night through keeping windows shut whilst a timer ticked down. Much of this was handled within a 'Game Manager' which I named the Overlord. The Overlord would pick and choose which window the creatures would try enter, keep track of timings in order to update the UI and also play random sounds to build tension.
When designing this, I chose a very similiar approach for each challenge which is represented in the simplified above diagram. My main reason for this approach was to keep the system modular, giving me the ability to dynamically add or remove windows based on validations. The best example of this is if the player chooses not to remove all the barricades which would make some windows invalid.
The Mannequins
Within The Picket, the player is facing off with relentless mannequin men. These characters were designed to be dangerous and could only be kept at bay by light and quick thinking. The mannequins themselves would try break in and, if successful, would endlessly chase the player until they were caught which would lead to a jumpscare and subsequent death screen. They were also created with heavy inspiration from the Weeping Angels from Dr Who.
To achieve this, Time Dilation was used as shown above which completely freezed the characters movements and animations which created the weeping angel freeze effect. Initially, this was handled directly from the player using delays but it cused jittery movement and not reliable. Having it handled directly from the enemy using their positions and camera direction was more expensive but the low volume of enemies meant its cost was outwayed by game feel provided.