Astrohaunt - Ana Stefan Portfolio

ASTROHAUNT Top Down Shooter You are an astronaut trying to clear as many haunted mansions as you can by shooting ghosts and taking their abilities!

13 People

7 Weeks

Technical Game Designer

Unreal Engine

itch.io

PROJECT OVERVIEW

About Project

This is the first multidisciplinary project that I worked in. We were given a few reference games, out of which we picked Paradroid, and a character and location: an astronaut in a mansion. We felt that Paradroid resonated best with our theme and we could take some of the features from it and adapt them to our game. This team included 4 designers, 4 programmers, and 5 artists.

Challenges

First Multidisciplinary Experience
This was the first time I got to work in a team project with artists and programmers, which was a little challenging at first. It took me some time to open up and speak my mind in meetings. It also taught me to trust my teammates as I learned that we all have our own strengths and I can count on others to do their work well.

Damage Feedback
When we first started playtesting the game, we noticed that the players wouldn't look at their health bar and would end up dying a lot. To solve this, I implemented a visual damage feedback system, the blood splatter vignette.

Players Are Unaware Of Minigame
We noticed that not many players knew that they could capture ghosts, but even if they did, they didn't see the point in doing it more than once. They also created their own strategies and found out which ability works best for them. Due to this, we decided to implement a tutorial level, which was my task, where the players are taught how to capture ghosts.

MY CONTRIBUTIONS

Reference Game Research

The design team worked on creating a research document, where my part was to create a gameplay flowchart for our reference game, Paradroid. This helped us get a better understanding of the mechanics and be able to choose elements that we wanted to take into our own game.

Gameplay Flowchart of Reference Game, Paradroid

Research Document

Prototyping the Character,

Camera, and Controls

Character For the character, I experimented with different types using a colleague's tool for adjusting in-game values easily. I created three versions: Floaty for the in-space feel, Quick and snappy like our reference game, and a blend of both for balance. Playtesting guided us to the final choice, which we tweaked based on player preferences.

Final Version

Paradroid-Like Movement

Floaty Movement

Camera
For the camera, I ensured it provided enough information without revealing the whole map, maintaining the Ouija Board's utility for finding enemies. Adjustments were made to address visibility issues near walls, resulting in a more balanced view.

Initial Camera

Final Camera

Controls Regarding controls, we initially disagreed and delayed decisions, which we now see as a misstep. We eventually settled on common controls, adjusting based on playtesting. We used Unreal Engine's input system, where each input action was set in the project settings and used in blueprints through events.

Leaderboard & Saving System

The saving system served dual purposes: for the intro cutscene, played only once at the game's start, and for saving high scores. The top 10 scores, entered by players at the end of each game, were displayed in a leaderboard, which creates competition. When the high score limit was reached, the system determined whether the player's score qualified for saving (if it was higher than the lowest score) or triggered the game over screen. The implementation involved using a tutorial for the saving system itself and creating a custom keyboard layout for the high-score screen using buttons that once pressed would add a letter to an array.

High Score Screen In-Game

High Score Screen Blueprint

Blood Splatter System

This system's purpose is to show the player when they are taking damage, becoming progressively bloodier the lower their health is. I implemented this because the players did not understand how much damage they were taking and could not always look at their health bar while playing the game. I created 4 animations for each quarter of the player's health and displayed them on top of the HUD accordingly.

Blood Splatter In-Game

Blood Splatter Blueprint

Onboarding & Tutorial

Level Workflow

I was tasked with creating the tutorial level for which I created a one-pager to start with. This explains my approach to onboarding the elements and the reasoning behind it, which involves gradually introducing mechanics, concluding with possessing and mini-game explanations.

Tutorial Level One Pager

Besides creating the level itself, I worked with programmers for setting up the enemy AI, and with artists for set-dressing and adding the instructional cards throughout the level. I used animations for popping the cards in and out. The level layout has changed multiple times based on my peers' and playtesters' feedback, aiming to provide clearer explanations.

Tutorial Level Showcase

Developed UI Menus & HUD

Using UMG (Unreal Motion Graphics), I developed many UI screens within the game, ranging from the main menu, the HUD, the leaderboard, and more. Back then, I had no experience with UI and used to align elements using anchors, which I now know is not a good idea. The layout was also not great and I think we could have made certain elements look better, like the health bar.

Achievements

I played an important role in developing many game elements, from adjusting the character and camera based on playtesting feedback to creating a tutorial level and onboarding the player. I implemented a dynamic leaderboard and saving system that enhanced competition between players, and I created the blood splatter system that provided the visual damage response. Lastly, I developed UI menus and HUD elements using UMG, which contributed to the game's visual display of information.
Being my first multidisciplinary project, I started out shy and reserved, but quickly adapted to being open about collaborating with the other roles.