Fade is an experimental narrative game I worked on together with artist Tiia van Lokven for eight weeks in the context of our university's experimental game block. Players control Paul, a grandfather that falls victim to unexplainable events during his weely walk through the park with his granddaughter.
Even though the game ultimately wasnt a success due to time restrains and overscoping, I'm still very found of the idea behind it, using mechanics to recreate the feeling of having Alzheimer's, thereby exploring lesser told stories of mental illness, and I would love to revisit this project at a later date. Since I was the sole programmer it also allowed me to face new exciting problems, like AI, and to teach myself the skills I needed to solve them.
Platform: PC
Roles: Programming, Narrative Design
Project Duration: February 2016 - April 2016
Even though the game ultimately wasnt a success due to time restrains and overscoping, I'm still very found of the idea behind it, using mechanics to recreate the feeling of having Alzheimer's, thereby exploring lesser told stories of mental illness, and I would love to revisit this project at a later date. Since I was the sole programmer it also allowed me to face new exciting problems, like AI, and to teach myself the skills I needed to solve them.
Platform: PC
Roles: Programming, Narrative Design
Project Duration: February 2016 - April 2016
Personal Contributions
Programming: As the only programmer on the game I had to hande all sorts of tasks (Movement, dialogue, event triggers and so on). What I am most proud of is diving into AI programming with Unreal Engine 4's Blueprint system, learning about Behaviour Trees and Blackboards and using that knowledge to create the granddaughter's AI, which follows the player, picks out points of interests from the environment, and triggers dialogues when certain conditions are met. I'm excited about the progress I made, and having that self-taught skill.
Narrative Design: The game came out of my idea of using mechanics to recreate the feeling of having Alzheimer's . My work on the game includes research into Alzheimer's, refining the mechanics accordingly, planning out scripted events and writing dialogue.