Flickering Shadows is one of the last projects of my studies at UQAC. For this free subject game, our group of four decided to try our hand at a complete Unreal Engine based game, for which we had less experience since most student games are based in Unity.
The concept of the game is fairly simple : you play as a young girl from a top-down view using her trusty candle to navigate a dark dungeon maze in order to find and bring back artifacts of varying rarity to the entrance. However, only one item at a time can be carried, including the candle.. Leave it alone for too long and specters might snuff it out, walk without it too much, and you'll lose time trying to find the doors in the dark.. and even if you keep it, once your time runs out you'll need to make a run for it to escape the monster that escapes its cell.
In the conception phase, our team quickly oriented ourselves towards something that would play with light and darkness, as we knew Unreal's light engine would certainly be interesting to experiment with visually. However, we initially went for a puzzle game, pitching mechanisms, one way doors, timers, and many different mechanics that would get assembled into a multi-level game of exploring puzzles (with already the idea of the candle starting to appear).
After a while of playing with the different possibilities of these puzzles, we found that none really managed to fit with the elements we really wanted to see, or would be too complex, or just plain not fun to play. Because of this, we decided to strip down what we had started working on, keeping only the core to rebuild a new concept, this time with a single level and more polished mechanics.
Mechanics :
The player can walk around, sprint, pick items up, put them down, and throw them forwards.
If the player is already holding something, they cannot pick another item up.
The player starts off holding a candle, which lights up an area around them allowing them to see walls, doors, and obstacles.
If the player drops the candle to pick up an item, the candle stays there for a set duration before ghosts start coming closer to it. If they reach it before the player picks it back up, the candle is extinguished.
If the candle is extinguished, or runs out (indicated by a UI indicator on the side if the HUD), then a boss monster is released. This monster runs just a little slower than the player sprinting, and runs straight towards them. If the player is touched by it before returning to the exit, they lose and come back empty handed.
Throughout the level, artifacts spawn. They are of varying rarity, type, and come in sets. The higher the rarity of the artifact, the less chance it has to spawn in, or the further from the exit it will be.
Each rarity level is indicated by a different colored outline, and each artifact has its icon, generic for the lower rarities, and unique for the rarest.
Higher rarity means a higher score value, and collecting multiple artifacts from one set provides a score boost at the end of the game.
To collect an artifact, the player must throw it through the exit door, which will save its value to their score. Once they wish to exit, the player simply walks through the exit to trigger the end of the level.
In the end screen, they will then see a list of all the artifacts they collected, as well as their score, which will be saved on a local scoreboard.
In addition, while their score is displayed, a simplified line simulating the path they have taken during this run will reproduce their movement, showing the places they have been, allowing the player to visualize where they may have lost time, or memorize passages and paths to take.
Participation :
For this project, I took on the role of 2D Artist and Gameplay Programmer.
As a 2D Artist, I designed the Game Logo, the end screen path line, the candle indicator on the left side of the HUD, as well as the artifact icons in the top right.
On the programming side, I was in charge of the artifacts as a whole. This means that I was tasked with collecting the visuals for each artifact, correcting the issues or dissimilarities, assigning them names, sets, rarities, icons...
I also made sure each was held correctly while the player picked them up (the picking up was designed by another developer), and that they spawned at the right rates in the correct spots. In the end, I also designed the system that counted the artifacts and determined the final score of the run.
Here is the trailer edited by our team for this game, for a better visualization of what this game has to offer :
To try out the game, here is the official UQAC Itch dedicated page : UQAC Itch
And here is the personal page made for us to freely edit and display on our personal Itch profiles : Lacombea Itch
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