For my 2nd Semester I got to make a 3D First-Person Game. I knew that I wanted my project to be a bit of a playground to test out storytelling, animations, working with NPCs and as many mechanics as I could fit into the short time that I had to work on it. So that's how I ended up deciding to make a crime investigation game.
As you can see, I jokingly named it a "generic murder mystery" since my focus was on learning and trying as many things as I could. While I did try to make the story interesting for the player, I did not want to pretend that a mafia-family plot was reinventing the wheel.
I designed the logo and worked some photoshop magic here and there but the 3D assets all came from the unity asset store.
I designed the logo and worked some photoshop magic here and there but the 3D assets all came from the unity asset store.
I looked at investigation scenes in other games I'd played to see what mechanics I would need. My main inspiration were LA Noire, Batman Telltale and Detroit: Become Human.
I decided I wanted the player to have to talk to multiple people multiple times and interact with the right clues in order to get the "right ending". The final game now has 4 different possible endings. There are misleading clues throughout the game, the player has to be thorough and pay attention to the story in order to get the right ending. Blindly clicking through dialogue is not going to work.
The narrow timeframe didnt allow me to experiment with multiple cameras or cutscenes, so I simply used photographs for closeups of evidence and characters during dialogue.
I used Fungus for the dialogues and a bunch of other mechanics, the NPCs were made with Adobe Fuse and rigged & animated with mixamo. So far they only have idle animations.
I used Fungus for the dialogues and a bunch of other mechanics, the NPCs were made with Adobe Fuse and rigged & animated with mixamo. So far they only have idle animations.
Since the whole game takes place in one location I added the NPC Sharon to do all the "outside" communication. The player has to talk to her at multiple times throughout the story for alibis, background checks and other things that would usually take places in other locations.
A journal keeps track of new clues and points in the story where talking to Sharon would be necessary.
A journal keeps track of new clues and points in the story where talking to Sharon would be necessary.
The curren in-game journal is just a very basic Fungus-made construction, I unfortunately ran out of time. But this is what I would've liked to have, inspired by Skyrim's journal/menu.
Anyway, here's the playthrough recording!
I am fully aware it's not a triple A masterpiece but I learned a lot of things with this project and I look forward to applying what I learned next semester!
I am fully aware it's not a triple A masterpiece but I learned a lot of things with this project and I look forward to applying what I learned next semester!
