Iterum
Iterum is a game made in Unity, as a project for the Games Applied Development university course.
The goal of this project was to develop a full Unity game.
We decided to implement a Silent Hills P.T. inspired Horror game.
General Overview
Game Mechanics
The core mechanic of Iterum is that it is a game played on a loop across copies of the same map prefab.
On each iteration of the map, the player has to understand which actions lead to the unlocking of the door that grants access to the next loop.
Game Performance
The player is only allowed to enter rooms that are essential for that specific iteration of the map.
In fact, on each iteration, the game is ready to only load the respective essential rooms, models and C# scripts, contributing to the increase of the game's frame rate.
Levels Progression Design
Iterum seeks to take the player into a sequence of puzzles and interactions that will make it understand what really happened in that house and who that scary silhouette is.
I may sound biased saying this but I think that Iterum's level design, player emotional curve and background story are great, considering this was our team's first Unity game and also given the little time we had to complete the entire game and everything we planned to do.
My Contributions
Game and Levels Design
I'm very pleased with how each loop puzzle on Iterum turned out after our team took the time to write a document planning every single detail.
On the initial iteration of the map, our intention was to let the player get familiarized with the environment of the map without any jump scares or blackouts.
On the second iteration, we gave some action to the scenario, with doors suddenly closing by themselves, the strange silhouette moving in the distance and noises heard from the kitchen, all as the player sets nearby triggers (events' triggering was something that the whole code of this game was based on).
There's also written messages on the walls throughout the whole game, giving clues for the player.
On the third iteration, the player experiences blackouts and jump scares after bravely approaching the silhouette that was blocking the hallway.
These blackouts allowed us to introduce the lighter, a light source that will also help to place the mood for the rest of the game.
On the fourth and iteration, we managed to give a clue to the player about the background history, by presenting a glitching video with news on the living room's TV.
And on the fifth and final iteration, we complete that background history with the final puzzle.
Map Looping Mechanic
In order to make sure that we could turn this map looping mechanic into an actual playable game, from early on I took the responsibility to try and make that loop logic on a Unity testing scene.
I used triggers to detect when to instantiate the next iteration of the map and delete the previous one.
Each iteration of the map has the pivot reference for the position of the next iteration.
To make sure that the player wouldn't try to go back as these changes happened, and similar to what happens on P.T., I locked the player's movement towards the next iteration of the map when detected close enough to the final door and looking at it at a certain angle.
Player's Animation Blend Tree
We wanted to have the presence of the player's shadow during the game, but it had to make sense according to the movements.
So this was our first interaction with Blend Trees in Unity, and we used a 2D type to blend the movement animations, since the player naturally has velocity components on both horizontal axis.
Lighter and TV glitching video
I created the particles system that is used for both the lighter and the fireplace, as well as the animation controller for the lighter states (closed, opening, lit, closing).
Looking back, the animation controller and all the logical scripting for the lighter would be way more improved in my today's standards, but hey it worked!
I also took care of editing the glitching video with news that passes on the living room's TV, on the fourth iteration of the map after the player lights the fireplace.
Sound Design
I researched the majority of the sound effects present in Iterum.
Also recorded and edited the dark voice sounds that shout "Burn it all!" during the glitching TV news video, as well as edited the sounds from the baby and the mom that can be heard during the final map iteration.
Also, the different steps sounds as the player walks are all from different timestamps of the same audio clip, and are played individually according to the distance travelled by the player.
I used Audacity to manipulate each sound effect.