Warded

For the dissertation project in my final year, I focused on creating a game within Unreal Engine with the main aim of developing a narrative-driven experience that balanced gameplay and story, ensuring that the narrative was explored via interactive elements to engage player emotions.

Along with a report, I submitted 'Warded' a horror experience that attempts to use the benefits video games have to offer as a medium for storytelling while not letting gameplay falter. The players controls Jacqueline, who stumbles into an other-worldly version of her flat that represents her struggle with depression and agoraphobia, with a hostile entity that represents her fears and how she sees herself. Armed only with a camera, she must escape back to reality and based on player's interactions with the environment and objects these determine the ending of the game.

Complete playthrough

Project type

Solo dissertation project

Role

Game designer, blueprint developer

Software

Unreal Engine 5.6

MiroBoard

My Contribution

This project required me to execute pre-production and production roles solely. Above are some screenshots from the completed game and links to videos such as a commentary breakdown of some features and a full playthrough without commentary.

Research

The project started with existing product research, focusing on successful narrative-driven games or those that excel in the horror genre. For inspiration I covered 'Layers of fear' , 'Resident Evil 2' and 'Dishonored' then explored game design theories that aid in narrative, their examples in the inspiration games and how they could be used in my project. I covered diegesis, environmental storytelling, using the MDA framework to create narrative, and self-determination theory to encourage player engagement with the story.

Narrative

During design planning, I created an outline of the narrative, planning the story to be discovered through interactions with journals and environmental features. The game follows the journey of a 23-year-old who has developed depression and agoraphobia after dealing with the loss of her sister on her birthday two years prior to the events of the game, to which she has never opened the present received from her. After being trapped inside for so long she enters an alternate version of her flat that represents her cycle of depression and grief, through actions from the player, the game ends with either Jacqueline opening the present and moving on or putting the present away and hoping to open it on her birthday next year. After the initial overview of the plot was established, the next step was to plan out the linear experience. This was developed using the MDA theory, by splitting the game into scenes and addressing the player’s feelings first (the aesthetics) and working backwards to the desired dynamics and finally the mechanics. After establishing the key beats I then made a flow chart of the event to map the sequence of interactions and visualise the pace of actions chronologically.

Mechanics and features

For the implementation of mechanics and features I relied on visual scripting, using Unreal Engine blueprint, below are brief details regarding some of these.

Interactions - Throughout the game, the intended player aesthetic is the feeling of accomplishment from discovering and piecing together narrative through investigations of the environment. For interaction with objects and the environment, this relies on line traces to determine what the player is looking at, checks for interactable then enables input. This logic was used for all interactables like opening/closing doors, searching drawers and inspecting/putting down objects like journals.

Camera- As set in the planned story, the main character was once passionate about photography but since losing her sister she has lost the love for the craft. The camera is used throughout the game to reveal hidden environmental features and hints to puzzles as well as helping in traversing the level by using the ability to take photos to progress and illuminate dark areas. When the player uses the camera, a post process volume is applied to the render, making the scene monochrome and revealing hidden meshes through utilizing custom depth stencils. This is used throughout the game to reveal hints to puzzles, and taking pictures of certain objects progresses the story.

Puzzles- In addition to the environmental puzzles where the player can use the camera and take a photo of the right object to progress, more involved puzzles that required critical thinking from the player were also implemented to enhance the gameplay element of the game. The first seen in the game revolves around inputting the correct time into a clock, which uses the same line trace interaction logic as previously mentioned, then after input the player is switched from controlling the character to controlling the clock, which has its own static camera positioned in front of the clockface. Mouse click inputs are then used that either relatively rotate the static mesh clockwise or anticlockwise, with the mouse wheel up/down controlling the current selected hand. Before attempting this puzzle, both hands of the clock need to be retrieved, one from completing a photo set up of still life and taking a photo, the other from opening a padlock fridge. The padlock interaction is similar to the clock with the additional coded for each row having a selected number that is set each time the mesh is rotated and after each change an event fires to check if the set numbers of all three rows match the correct sequence.

Hope counter- To further engage the players into the narrative of the game and give them agency over the outcome, ‘Warded’ has two endings, the ‘closure’ ending and the ‘cycle continues’ ending. To determine these, specific actions within the game are given points after completion and stored within a blueprint component attached to the player. After completing the encounter with the creature in the last room, this 'count' is then totalled and a score above 70 achieves the 'closure' ending, with a lower count causing the 'cycle continues' ending. The criteria that dictates the ending:

Finding and reading journal entries – Show that Jack is acknowledging her feelings and trauma.

Cleaning up the bedroom and the bathroom in the first flat – Represents small tangible goals that when achieved can help with depression.

Finding and taking a photo of out of reach presents – Shows Jack is actively wanting to face the challenge of opening it and moving on.

Flashing the stalking creature- Shows that Jack is facing her own emotions and wants to move past them.