LIAM NORMAN GAMES DESIGN PORTFOLIO
Leveling Designs Virtually
Night Light
Night Light is Horror game I developed with a team for my 2nd year at university. This project would have me learn a new engine(Unreal Engine) from scratch and challenge me to push out content against deadline dates.
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My main target goals were:
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To develop interesting puzzles/mechanics that could fit into the game.
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To work with other team members and make sure their assets successfully enter the game with minimal issues.
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Expand knowledge on Unreal Engine in order to create complex systems the game requires.
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My main roles were in: Gameplay Mechanics, Level Design
Mechanical Design
When developing the project 'Night Light', it was originally designed/prototyped as a VR horror game that I had made in my room. This was originally my initial idea to invest in a new market but was eventually discussed between the team on what direction we would take the prototype in and was reworked as a classic First Person game afterward.
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By the end of the project I had successfully developed the following mechanics:
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Lightning lighting effect and Randomizer.
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Lockbox Puzzle UI/UX.
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Wall texture change based on sanity levels.
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World's structure for Level Streaming
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Introduction Animation
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A few of these mechanics proved rather difficult to balance from a performance perspective due to the uptick that was required to run these systems, constant iteration and downscaling made it achievable.
This is a map within engine that we used to test mechanics before they were implemented into the game completely.
I enjoyed working on this project a lot despite some flaws in some of the systems. The Lockbox puzzle to be precise was a code-based puzzle that required the player to use their light to find out the code to the box, but through various testing phases, players took some time to realize the pattern. All of the mechanics themselves worked flawlessly but the presentation required some tuning.
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My favourite mechanic which I am still proud of today is the Lightning system which flashes colour into the house at random intervals, This system I had developed in the early stages of the game to create an immersive feeling into the world, to make it believable that thunder and lightning were crashing down.
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If I were given the chance to work on Night light again, I think that I would completely switch up the flow of the game and start anew, though the end product was pretty good, I feel it could be better.