Unreal Engine 5
Solo
300 hours
Made for - PC
Mine.co Shutdown is a first person shooter short game. You're an agent sent out on a mission to halt the illegal mining operations being carried out by the Zefuna corporation. Their mission is to harvest all the earth's minerals, creating a monopoly where they're on top — it's your mission to stop their latest sham.
I was the only developer on this project. I wanted to challenge my knowledge of basic Unreal Engine 5 blueprint scripting in a way others could experience.
Level Design
Top-down view of a digitized version of the final level map.
Level FLowchart
Tension Graph
Design Techniques
Guiding light
Through out the level, the player will be led by a neon green light. This light aids in showing them that they are following the right path.
Funneling before reveal
Before players reach an area of greater size or importance. I minimize the surrounding environment, keeping it cramp and barren, to spark an exploration interest when revealing the next area.
Style of play
Players are free to approach each area as they please, guns blazing or sneakily shadow creeping. This is to promote different styles of play the game supports both options equally.
Simulated Environment
The level environment is constructed in such a way that, much like the player, enemies can in theory reach all points the player can. I wanted it this way since the level is heavily inspired by real-life mine infrastructure.
BLOCKOUT
Gameplay Design
My goal for the gameplay design was to create a linear stealth adventure game where the enemies were more dangerous then what the player could handle. However, as development progressed I started leaning more into a mix of stealth with the option for guns blazing. This shift occurred as I identified opportunities to utilize the AI in a way that would enhance and diversify the gameplay experience.
As the base for this game, I utilized the Advanced Locomotion System V4 plugin for player movement and Voxel Plugin Free Legacy for the would terrain — both are available on the Unreal engine marketplace. I choose these plugins as they provided me with an ample starting ground to create the type of game experience I was after.
Player actions
In the beginning, I wanted to player to not feel as though they stood a chance against the enemies. This was because I wanted the player to use their surroundings as an advantage rather than run through everything without any consequences. As I continued developing, I found it more satisfying to play when the player could hold their own and fight back against the enemies.
Enemy Design
The enemy design was my take on trying to understand the intricacies for designing AI behavior using behavior trees. Originally, going with the more stealthy setting, I wanted the AI to have three states: Patrolling, Investigating, and Alerted. This changed alongside the overarching shift in the game's gameplay feel.
It turned from three to two states, patrolling and alerted, which further aided in the transition into the new direction the game was heading. My biggest challenge was understanding the fundamentals of how creating my own actions worked. This because I found no-way to create actions in a similar way to how player actions are controlled.
UI Design
I wanted to have a simpler UI structure, deciding specific placements for each element depending on its relevance for the player. I also wanted for the UI to be expressive in a way that didn't pull much attention from the game.
The way that I was able to bring the UI to life was by implementing smaller animations and changes it hue of certain colored assets. These animations gave also severed a critical role in player feedback. By visually telling the player something happened, it creates a more noticeable feedback loop leading to the player being more aware of their circumstance.
UI Showcase
SOund Design
When it came to the SFX, I wanted to create something that fit the more realism leaning style of the game. All sound effects, aside from the footsteps included in the Advanced Locomotion System V4 plugin, were all created in house. I created the SFX using snip-bits from several recordings I've taken over the years, for this specific reason, and combined them to match the sound I was after. On top of that, I used everyday items and old toys for the more repetitive sounds, as to not make them to obnoxious.
SFX Showcase
Cargo Lifts
GATEs
Weapon firing
Breaking LIghts
Reflections
I had a lot of fun and passion that I poured into the project. If I were to revisit this project there are a few parts I feel more well equipped to handle now.
The fall damage system could use some improvements. While it functions correctly, about 70% of the time, there are several prominent edge cases which are not accounted for. Parts of the reason for this was my struggle to have the system work alongside the intricacies of the Advanced Locomotion System V4 plugin.
The AI behavior is something I think I could have spent more time polishing. In their current state, the enemies serve their purpose of being a dangerous threat to the player until they can fight back. However, certain parts of their pathing tend to malfunction and their behavior when actually attacking the player is not performed in the way I was hoping for.
Overall, this project greatly improved my understanding of blueprint communication, performance optimization, and how to design systems in Unreal Engine 5. I am pleased with the outcome of the project but I am sure that I can improve further and create something bigger and better.
