Windows (Sam Leiman)

Controls:

WASD to move

Left Click to interact with objects

p to reset the game

The game is named Windows, and its supposed to represent my experience socializing in high school. The long lonely walk across these hallways is supposed to represent how awful it feels to be alone. The windows show the people I wanted to interact with, but couldn't. I can see them, but there's something stopping me. The doors represent overcoming the obstacles of socializing as I move from talking with friends in school to actually hanging out with them. The final room represents romance and how even when I put in the work it was unacheivable. Falling through the floor shows tries to greatly increase the feeling of loneliness.

The main problem when making this game coding wise was the controls. I didn't know how to make a first person character controller exactly, so I kept trying new things and fixing them. I eventually landed at needing to use linear algebra to alter vectors received from inputs. This took me quite a while, as I never learned linear algebra. After a lot of work I finally got it working. I'm pretty sure there is an easier to implement it, but I got so into figuring it out I didn't even look for other options. The other main struggle was creating art assets. I can make 2D art assets pretty well, but I have never really used 3D modeling before. At the beginning I was struggling to make the most basic of objects, but by the end I think I started making objects look a lot better. Unfortunately, the objects I made towards the end were less important, but I think the practice is still really useful.

With more time I think I would like to make a lot more art assets. I didn't have time to make nearly as good art as I made. I would like to have made more detailed scenes and redone the models for the people. I also would've liked to make the main hallway have some objects in it. I also would've liked to make the keys and doors a bit better of a metaphor, but everything I thought of seemed either too real or it did not make sense. I think trying to hone down that aspects thematically would help the game a lot.