My Role: Created gameplay and narrative sequence, designed animation-audio system and layered background, created and implemented environment shaders
Tech Used: Unity with Lightweight Render Pipeline, Visual Studio for C#, ShaderGraph (water, character FX), Adobe Audition
Teammates: Alaina Palmer
Project Description: Here We Belong is a non-dialogue character-driven narrative game in which the player explores the world at their own pace, meeting characters and finding their own place as a strange creature in a strange world.
Playable Link: Here We Belong (Itch)
Design Features:
Breadcrumb Level Design
In the desert, the main challenge was keeping the sense of emptiness while still providing a path to progression. After playtest feedback and multiple iterations, we evolved our breadcrumb model to use distinct rocks or trees with the next crumb always at the edge of the screen.
Day/Night Dynamic Transition Scenes:
Scene transitions (Desert->Forest, Forest->City) featured a side-view scene in which the lighting responded directly to player progression across the level. This was done to give the player a pause between interactions and a moment of reflection with a camera angle change. This was also crafted to be modular, with the script relying on % progression through the level rather than raw distance traveled.
