Technical Designer:
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Designed and implemented the original/prologue level
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Developed VFX including a VHS static effect capable of masking specific objects
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Implemented level props and events
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Implemented system to seamlessly transition between playable video tapes and the real world
Pitch Trailer
Featuring reactions from lets-play videos uploaded by players.
Explore the horrifying tragedy of an old mine through a series of playable video tapes.
DEVELOPMENT
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The Mine was initially developed as a project for the second class in the highly competitive Game Development Minor at MSU
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A build was released to the public on itch.io and was well-received. Over a dozen lets-play videos were posted to YouTube by players
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The Mine was pitched to a panel of instructors, alumni, and industry representatives and was selected as one of the 4 (of 8) games to continue development in the next class
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After being selected to continue development, The Mine's team grew from 5 people to 11 and the concept of playable video tapes was introduced
PLAYABLE VIDEO TAPES
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As the scope of the game increased beyond the original build, a failure state that wouldn't kill a player's sense of tension was needed
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Tapes can be found throughout the mine which allows the player to play through the events of the tape as a self-contained level
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Importantly, most tapes can only be played once. If the player dies within a tape, their character stops watching the tape and the player continues through the present-day mine
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Therefore, when a player would normally reload from a checkpoint, they must instead push forward with less information, maintaining tension
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This prevents players from becoming overly familiar with the behavior of the monsters, preserving a fear of the unknown
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Outside of tapes, the mine possesses an unsettling atmosphere but poses no direct danger, allowing players a chance to relax between tapes
VHS Static VFX
In order to build suspense through fear of the unknown, we decided that the monster should be obscured by static in the playable tapes. To this end, I developed a static VFX capable of obscuring arbitrary objects in the scene.
I also used the same base static effect to create a seamless transition between tapes and the real world.
