Doghouse

Overview

In this Silent Hill/Resident Evil inspired survival-horror game, you play as Elijah, a brave 11 year old boy who takes his beloved dog Duke out on a walk through a quiet cul-de-sac in 1990s America. The small neighborhood is suddenly transformed into a living hell that evening. With little ways of defending yourself, you must solve puzzles, avoid hazards, survive supernatural threats, and rescue Duke before it is too late. This Unreal Engine 5 game is in development, with level demos viewable. This game is planned to be shipped to Steam within late 2024/early 2025.

Genre First Person, Survival Horror, Puzzle
Engine Unreal Engine 5
Tools Unreal Engine, Visual Studio
Team Size 2
Status In Development

Play Demo

Roles and Responsibilities

Gameplay Programming

C++ and blueprint programmed player mechanics, such as using doors to temporarily slow enemies
C++ and blueprint programmed ghost woman's ability to teleport between light sources in order to attack player
C++ and blueprint programmed survival horror inventory system, with stacking, organizing, dropping, and hotkey mechanics
C++ Programmed base class puzzles, doors and locks, interactable objects, and items

Level Design

Designed intro to main house level, and scripted narrative dialogue and events
Scripted narrative dialogue for events and puzzles
Designed and scripted demo level, with locked door and puzzle progression

Blueprint programmed ghost AI to only navigate and teleport within light sources
C++ and blueprint programmed logic to help enemies navigate and distinguish between unlocked and locked doors
C++ and blueprint programmed AI door breach mechanic
Blueprint and Behavior Tree programmed enemy AI states, such as chasing, attacking, and abilities

UI and HUD

Created highlight interactive/object outline for easy mechanic recognition
Crosshair is replaced by different icons to indicate interactability, along with action key prompt

Design Concepts

The Ghost Woman

The ghost woman is bound only by lit areas, and when the player steps into the same light source she will immediately charge and attack. She can teleport to any other light the player steps into. The player must navigate to the end of the level while avoiding lights, finding alternate routes, turning off lights, or quickly running through.

The challenge of programming the mechanic was a lack of a built-in light detection feature for Unreal Engine. I achieved this by creating a base class, which could be inherited by light source objects (ceiling lights, lamps, etc.). The base class had a collision area component, which detects an overlapping player - this was the "player in light" check. This component set the boundary for the ghost's movement via a navmesh applied to the actor's navigation filter.

The ghost actor, whose AI is programmed by a behavior tree, would check if the player was standing in a light area. If the player is in the same light, the ghost would charge at them. If the player was in another light source, the ghost would execute the teleport mechanic.

The ghost teleport ability

Navigation view of light area (pink). Ghost can't walk onto surrounding paths (green).

Shadow Men

In this game you would rely on your flashlight to navigate most of the dark areas of levels. I wanted to enhance the experience of flashlight-heavy horror games where you simply reveal enemies in the dark; Shadow men are completely invisible, but they cast shadows in the light. The player could only reveal them by lights. I made the flashlight's beam only faintly revealing their shadows. Therefore the flashlight's reliability was limited and the player would be incentivized to utilize the environment.

The shadow men also do not step foot into lighted areas (the same light area the ghost woman uses), so the player would be safe - but I am debating on keeping or discarding this mechanic throughout development so I could leverage their unique shadow-casting visual.

In the early stages the shadow men had the Lights Out mechanic, where they would disappear when illuminated. However, I felt this mechanic wasn't challenging enough, and was more of peek-a-boo. I wanted the player to be pursued, paranoid, and not safe.

The shadow man in different lights

Shadow men early banish mechanic

Door Navigation

For now, enemies have a simple Navigation AI for chasing a target. They will navigate around obstacles and can interact with doors, treating them as a valid path. Enemies cannot open locked doors, nor will they attempt to open one, but once unlocked the AI will include it in their valid path. This was achieved by placing a NavLink component on doors. Locked doors disable the NavLink, and reactivate once they are unlocked.
Below are demonstrations of behavior in 3 different scenarios: