This project was done using Unreal Engine 4, for Global Game Jam 2016. I led the team comprising 9 people from distinct backgrounds. The game is based on the theme “Ritual”, and I designed the core concept of the game. Deriving from the concept, we designed puzzles and their mechanisms for the game and I programmed those using blueprints in the engine. The game revolves around the character named “Ver”, which is a spirit venturing in a temple in its afterlife, sacrificing its negative characteristics in order to re-gain its 5 senses and take rebirth.

The character Ver, is a spirit of a human in its afterlife. The character ventures in a temple and eventually identifies the negative characteristics it portrayed during its life. It has to sacrifice these characteristics by performing rituals in order to manipulate the shape and color of the temple in order to reveal the 5 hidden human senses and take rebirth.

The negative characteristics are basically skills the character can use in the game. These characteristics are portrayed as seals/glyphs, and can be used to manipulate the temple by sacrificing a combination of seals in the altar. The negative characteristics of the spirit are:

Players gain specific abilities to use in the game by sacrificing these glyphs, and can also recover them. Players can only carry one glyph at a time and be able to use its specific power. When a glyph is sacrificed in the altar, the players gain a global effect respective to the glyph that is placed in the altar, which will also lock/unlock certain regions in the game. Since these glyphs are negative characteristics, when the player is carrying a glyph, the specific global effect respective to the glyph is taken away.

The names of the skills start with C, G and F for another reason. C-G-F is a well-known chord progression in music, so depending on the glyph sacrificed in the altar, these respective chords play as the background music in the game.

Picked - Skill: Illuminate - Press the “Q” key to illuminate a short area around the character. This ability will reveal hidden objects in a short area.

          Take away - Global illumination

Placed - Global illumination - The entire temple is illuminated and the player can see the area around the character completely.

          Take away - Skill: Illuminate.

Picked - Skill: Colorize - Press the “Left-Mouse Button” to fire color shots to saturate different objects. Colorizing certain objects will reveal its true color.

          Take away - Global saturation

Placed - Global saturation - The entire temple is saturated to 80% color. Player can saturate the level to find odd objects (which can be colorized using Skill: Colorize).

          Take away - Skill: Colorize.

Picked - Skill: Construct - Press the “E” key near rubble to reconstruct structures that unlock paths to certain areas.

          Take away - Global reconstruction

Placed - Global reconstruction - Reconstruct broken structures on the entire map, revealing hidden objects, and paths in the temple.

          Take away - Skill: Construct

Using a combination of the character glyphs, the objective of the player is to find all 5 senses so that the spirit can take rebirth. There are 7 different combinations that can be made using 3 glyphs, so there are 7 different puzzles in the game. The player starts with the Cowardice character glyph already picked. The puzzles are designed in the following order:

•    Puzzle for unlocking Greed character

•    Puzzle for unlocking Fury character

•    5 puzzles for all 5 senses

The player has the choice of clearing these puzzles in any order they wish to. Since the combination of abilities unlocks/reveals or locks/hides areas and objects, the players have to iterate and re-iterate these combinations in order to solve puzzles.