Key Hunt
Solo
4 weeks
Unreal
Concept
Key Hunt is a prototype where the player is placed among a crowd of NPCs where one is hunting you and one holds the key to open the locked door and progress forward. The catch is that the hunter is a shapeshifter who will periodically change their shape to keep you off their trail. There is no combat so the player must keep an eye out and evade the enemy if they are found!
Introduction
Key Hunt was my first real project using Unreal Engine, so I learned a lot about the engine and how it works in the 4 week timespan that this project took. I really wanted to create an interesting and unique experience as I feel that I learn best when I set a difficult goal and do everything to achieve that goal.
After learning about the built-in AI tools that Unreal provides, I decided to experiment with creating an enemy in a game without combat.
Design Pillars
I designed Key Hunt around these core ideas, using them as a way to ground my prototype as I experimented with new ideas and figured out how to implement each feature.
Dynamic Gameplay
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I wanted to challenge myself with creating an experience that would be different every time and be able to provoke emotions in the player every time.
Thrilling Threat
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I designed the enemy to be something the player could not fight or get rid of, but something persistent and almost frightening.
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I wanted to explore the idea of making the threat more of a mental battle within the player themselves instead of something to fight against in game.
Interesting Environment
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I believed it would help the prototype if the environment was interesting and had some sort of narrative tied to it, even if it was not the main focus of the prototype.
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I also created several pathways and props that could be used to evade the enemy as that was the only way to get around the threat.
Key Features
My main goals with this prototype were to learn as much as I could, create a fun and unique experience, and polish the game as I possibly could within the 4 week timespan. This pushed me to learn and use many of Unreal's built in tools to accomplish these goals and I am quite happy with the result.
Introduction to the Enemy
I used Unreal's sequencer to create a cinematic that would introduce the enemy in the coolest way I could imagine. It was a lot of fun figuring this one out, and I used a combination of tools to make it possible.
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The area where the cinematic takes place uses a NavModiferVolume to prevent any of the NPCs from walking into the area before the cinematic begins. It is removed after it starts.
NPC Randomizer
Every time the level is loaded, every single NPC is spawned in with a randomized model. This extends to the shapeshifter that will also change its form after losing sight of the player. This creates gameplay out of evading the enemy and keeping an eye out for the new transformation.
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(This clip has an increased frequency of shape shifting for demonstrational purposes.)
Creating an Alternative Goal
Due to the complete randomness of which NPC holds the key, it can be very difficult or frustrating to find it. To fix this, I added NPCs that hold bags of money on their belt and a shop to spend that money. The shop sells a lockpick that can be used instead of the key. It also sells a smoke bomb that can be used to stun the shapeshifter if it gets too close.
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Pickpocketing money is a gradual and guaranteed way of accomplishing the main goal if the player is unlucky in their search for the key.
Technical Design
Here are some examples of the blueprints I created to make this prototype work.
For the Shapeshifter enemy AI, I used a simple system using the On See Pawn (Pawnsensing) node to trigger the functionality of the chase and shapeshift. As long as the Shapeshifter has eyes on the player, and for 3 seconds afterwards, it will continue to chase. When it loses the player, it will change it's form and resume it's random roaming function which just gets a random reachable point in a radius and path-finds towards it.
NPC Randomizer
A simple yet very important system to allow the player to interact with various things. An interface is used to reuse the same functionality on several things without needing to rewrite the same code for each instance. I use the interact system on the money bags and key, the door to escape, and the shopkeeper's stand.
As the game is currently mostly about running away and evading the shapeshifter, I created a stamina system and multiple ways of increasing your speed. This system lets the player toggle a jogging state by pressing the Shift key, which lets the player move at a faster with a small stamina drain. The player can also hold down the Shift key to enter a sprinting state which moves the player at a very fast pace with a larger stamina drain. When the player is not jogging or sprinting, the stamina will slowly regenerate.
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© 2023 by Seth Marrison. All Rights Reserved.