Vigil In Darkness

Main Menu

Background

As I previously stated Purdue is apart of me. It is apart of me because of the skills that I have acquired at this university. Each skill is important to me, and this game was the first game that was made these skills.

In short, the game is about a person who was sent to investigate a old cabin, and the residence of that cabin. However, once he got there. He was not the only one.

The player is tasked with trying to escape from the cabin, and the only way that the player is able to figure out what is going on is by gathering up the pages that are scattered around the residence. But there is an issue, the cabin is dark and the only thing that the player can see with is a lantern. However, the thing that is also with the player lives in the dark. The lantern is the one thing that is keeping it away. So, do not let it go out.

The thing that I completed as apart of this game was the programming, implementation of the elements, and the management of the team for the project. This project marked the first time that I completed a game with other people. This project helped me better my teamworking skills, as well as my skills in the Unreal Engine 5 development software.

Programming

As previously stated, I was the lead programmer of this game. I programmed all the elements in the game. One of the core elements that I created was the journal. At the begin at the game. The player will find the journal on a night stand, and after they click “F” on the journal. They will have picked it up.

When the player presses “F” they pickup items. I created the code for that. I made it “F”, because the doors and the items that were picked up complicated with each other. Hence, why “F” is pickup and “E” is open doors. The player only has so many hands. So, that is the reasoning for there to be two key binds for the pickup and doors.

That was the first issue that I fixed with the game when I programming it. The team when the game to have certain elements, and the two main things that the team wanted to implement into the game. I was tasked with making sure those two elements were programmed properly into the game.

Above is the journal after the player collects it, and presses “J”. The journal is where the player will view the lore elements into the game. I did not make the pages, but I did make the journal mechanics. This is the page turning, and the viewing of the journal. This was one element of the game that the team wanted to get into the game. The item is the lantern.

Journal

This is the lantern that the player will use to view the environment of the cabin. The cabin is very, very dark. The team wanted it to be that dark. The lantern is the only source of light that is available for the player to use. I programmed it so that the light turns on when the player holds the light. It also has a sprite as the flame. The lantern also has a mechanic that when the player holds the lantern they are unable to pick up pages. So, they would have to set it down in order to pick up the pages. However, if the player leaves the lantern on the group to long. The entity would spawn as well as turn off the light.

The entity is something that was pretty easy to program in regards to using Unreal Engine 5. The entity’s programing was simple, because all it need to do was spawn in and attack the player after the light in the lantern gets blown out. The only thing that was an issue to program was the entity disappearing after the light gets picked up again. However, that issue was fixed through the help of my teammates as well as my school mates and the professor. The issue was fixed and now the entity disappears.

Closing Thoughts

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