Do You Dare

Struggling with night terrors, you must use your camera to find the batteries hidden in your dream. Beware of using the camera too much as your nightmares will come out to haunt you. Collecting four batteries and installing them will allow you to unlock the door to escape your nightmare.

This game was created to demonstrate horror and tension building in game design using sound, layout, and scripting. I accomplished this by using background audio that is overlaid with sounds of peace, laughing, and running on wood floors.

The main mechanic of the level was the camera. Using Unreal blueprint scripting, I created a camera that could take pictures and activate specific items inside of the level. These items were enemies, batteries, and doors. The batteries would be invisible to start the game, but if the player took a picture of them, they would reveal themselves and the player could pick them up. Doors in the level act similarly. All doors are locked in the game, and only open when the player takes a picture of them.

Enemies are more complicated. Using a complicated system of camera layers and rendering materials, enemies are only visible to the player on the camera screen. Without taking a picture of the enemy, the enemy is invisible both in the game and on the camera’s screen. After taking a picture of the enemy, they become active on the screen but not in the world. This way if the player is running away from an enemy, they must slow down to view the camera screen. This builds a sense of horror and dread knowing that the enemies might catch you at any time.

A key aspect of the enemies is that they do not do any damage. The intention of this game is to demonstrate the horrors of nightmares while also showing that they cannot hurt you.

Gameplay Video

Disclaimer - I did not create the models and art for this project. This project was completed for a level design course, and I found the free assets on the unreal store. I placed and moved around objects that I received in the package.

Papermap

My original design for the level was to have the player stuck in a maze and the only way out was using the camera to find the batteries to escape. It would begin with a tutorial section to show the player how to use the camera, then the player would enter the maze and try to escape. However, the scope of this level was too large for a single project, and I decreased the size of the level to five rooms inside of a house.

Final Thoughts

For this project I truly wanted to challenge myself. This was my first true attempt at using Unreal Engine by myself, and I wanted to create a fun and interesting mechanic along with good level design. My camera mechanic works, but it took too much time and I pushed myself a bit too far. I would not say I over scoped my ability to create a level, but perfecting a camera using an unfamiliar language, unreal blueprints, proved to be more than I could handle.

I love the outcome and it works as intended, but I would love to come back and perfect it over time. I need to learn to spend more time on the task, which was creating a level rather than perfecting a mechanic.