Night's Embrace

***THIS GAME COULDN'T FINISH IN TIME OF JAM! We'll try to describe it here***   

This game was made by 7 people in a team.

Mitch, Luke, Cameron, Ellie, Matthew, Joey and Shreayns. 

We had to plan out the production before hand since we were dealing with multiple time zones, which did affect development but computer issues actually damaged us more. Such as realising that GitHub can't hold the unreal project if its too big so we looked for another software like helix. It helped but with everyone being inexperienced in it, alot of problems rised where people forgot to sign out or didn't understand what to do when errors were shown. Also it had only a maximum user number meaning not all people that new programming could not help with development.

We also had communication and information issue, but even then we still enjoyed the jam because this work was important to many in the team and giving you the game without showing their full effort into making it is very sad so I'll like to try and show that effort here.  However we won't be able to show Joey's fantastic audio to you at this point in time when the voting has rules that are against having links.

All in all our team put alot of effort into this game and we really sad that we couldn't show it ingame due to some technical development issues.

None of the ingame assets were created by us they are obtained from online. Credit is bottom of page.

Audio was all created by Joey, very sad that it wasn't added to the game when it was all ready to be added but computer issues was rising for the server hosting the project that prevented our development.

HUD was created by Cameron and Matthew.  Cameron was the lead designer for UI put alot of effort into making it which was also upsetting that they also couldn't get that ingame due to computer issues.  He also designed the HUD and let Matthew help to make what Cameron wanted while he got some rest.

What went wrong?

At the beginning the development was going alright, we quickly made tasks for each other and had them listed on google slides to remember from, we sometimes had a confusion on what the gameplay is and if the theme was in the game but we got ourselves back on the same page again. The issues that came up later were poor online communication, misunderstanding and technical issues. 

We knew of risks that happened and we had work arounds but with the stress and rushing we couldn't get around the issues. Programming had difficulty and had hold up and some wished they were able to helped out with them but the server software only allow 5 users to use the server and to access the project. 

Audio and UI wasn't implemented to the project due to this hold up. 

Theme : The Game Jam showed it was Joined together.

We started thinking if its a physical and its about a person chained to a past self in a mirror realm. But since using a 3d engine we weren't confident in making it in under 48 hrs so which it why we chose a pet protecting its master. 

We expanded that to have the player go against a wave of enemies across a map similar to left for dead. The player had to protect the fox while it also protected the player against enemies since if either dies then it will be game over.

The Player Experience:

The player will spawn on one side of map in a top down view game. The player would move by w a s d and let their fox follow them. We had a feature to use mouse 2 as a point and click for the fox to move and be commanded by you. The commands the player had with their dog were only 3, which is move to a position, come close to the player and a stun ability.  The overall gameplay was similar to of dragon age origins.

The player and the fox had the same health, this fits with the theme we added a mechanic that will make the player lose if they died or fox died, meaning the player had to reach the finish line with their fox in order to win. 

The player had a sword to attack with which makes the gameplay close combat. 

We wanted the pet to have more meaning and have something the player would want to keep by, so the stun would freeze wolves position and stops them from attacking for a small amount of time.

With enemies, they wolves that want to kill either the fox or the player. 

The enemies would also spawn in waves so when the player moves across the map, they are constantly bombarded with wolves, meaning they need to command their fox to stay with them and find a good defensive spot to attack the wolves.

To also keep with the original idea we had a feature for the fox to protect the player as well if they take damage from a wolf, even if the fox is attacking another. We wanted this to be kept in but we didn't reach QA to fully test this idea.

The 

Environment

The game is set in medieval fantasy world and a dangerous world at night. 

Story:

After travelling with your fox for seems an eternity, you finally see glimpses of shelter of a far-off town. As you rush towards it, you begin to notice the growing number of bark markings, bones and eerie sounds of howling; it's a full moon tonight. You and your fox join together to  survive the night

As the player, you must command your companion to fend off the monsters, hunt down the alpha's and get to the safety of torchlight before you and your companion are both taken by the embrace of night.

Note: The game isn't pixel style and after a week we'll have the version that it was meant to be ready. 

Credits 

Epic Games online asset store

Stylized Character Kit: Casual 01 - Rocketarts

Quadruped Fantasy Creatures - Protofactor Inc

Forest Landscape Materials Vol. II - Project Nature

Advanced Village Pack - Advanced Assets Packs

ANIMAL VARIETY PACK - Protofactor Inc

Free Fantasy Weapon Sample Pack - Prop Garden LLC

Itch

Medieval Interior Asset Pack - SOI

Producer - Matthew and Luke

Designers(Story, map design, UI and HUD) - Ellie, Luke, Cameron and Matthew

Programmers - Luke, Mitch, Shreayns, Cameron 

Audio - Joey

Itch writer - Matthew