Games
Here you will find further information about the games in which I have participated and you will find out which roles I have taken on in the respective games.
The Bewitching Brew
The Bewitching Brew was the sixth-semester game project of a friend of mine who studies at a different location of my university, for which I helped out.
The Bewitching Brew is a first-person, Cozy Café Simulator, in which you take care of the most curious customers as Aurora, the Witch. Not only are you taking orders but you also provide a safe space for your customers to vent their emotions, for which you always have the right potion in mind, of course.
After my internship at CoreCraft UG concluded, regular university life started up again. My friend, Valentin Nollau, asked me for help with Game Design and Narrative Design for his term project and I was happy to help.
Game Design was something I was relatively new to at that point, so I was happy to try something new. I designed the mechanics of the game, including the Brewing, Gathering of Customer Information and the Core Gameplay Loop.
Narrative Design on the other hand was more familiar to me, having been a big passion of mine for the last projects. I wrote the General Narrative of the game and the Characters, alongside their Personalities, Wants, Needs and Allergies. I also wrote the Dialogue Options for each of the interactions with the Characters.
Railroad 9
Release Pending
Railroad 9 started off as a random Idea I had one day and turned into my First Solo-Project under the name "Infinity Reborn Games", an homage to Lands of Infinity.
The Game is a first-person horror game with a focus on completing tasks and surviving. The idea for the Game came from me sitting in a Subway Train and looking out through the front window and thinking: "This would make for a great horror Game". It, like the other games I worked on before , was built in the Unity engine.
The Main Character of the Game is a nameless Subway Train Conductor who, after a mistake on his last shift, has been reassigned to the remote Railroad 9. This Railway is rumored to be haunted by Evil Spirits that try to sabotage Trains and in a Moment of uncertainty, kill all of their Passengers and the Conductor. You, now working on this Railroad in your Train, must try to keep your Passengers satisfied by fixing any Malfunctions caused by the Spirits. If you figure out who of your Passengers are Spirits, you can purge them using a Charm your Grandmother gave you for your protection.
After Development on Reflections concluded, I started my mandatory internship at CoreCraft UG. During that time, I missed working on something of my own, so I started developing Railroad 9 on the side. Since I was developing this Game alone, I had to find other ways to obtain Art, while myself being responsible for Development and Sound. The 3D Models in this Game are mostly comprised of Assetpacks from the Unity Assetstore, however some are also made by me or my friends. The UI and 2D Art are made by my Girlfriend, Jennifer Hager.
In this project I was able to use my, now rather expansive, knowledge of the Unity Engine. This Game also introduced me to Unity's Spline System, which I used to create the Train and the Rails it follows.
The Sound of this Game resembles the Sound in Prisoner's Curse. It has a heavy focus on Ambient Horror and environmental Sounds, while also balancing the mechanical and semi-realistic sounds. Railroad 9 does not include Music per se, however some Soundtracks from my other Works can be played on a Radio inside the Train Cabin as an homage to those Games.
Reflections
For contractual reasons with my university, I am not allowed to provide the download link for this project.
Reflections was the third game project that was created during my fourth semester studies.
The Game is a Reimagination of the World from The Journey Above, but changed to fit the new concept we came up with. It is a third-person action-adventure game with a focus on stealth and combat. It, like the two games before it, was built in the Unity engine.
As the main character of the game, Tian, you have to explore the beautiful nature-filled world on the back of the giant whale you live on. When Tian gains mysterious abilities during a ceremonial rite, his village is attacked. Now he has to stop the invaders from destroying his home. As the game progresses, the player unlocks five skills that he can use to overcome to evade, confuse or destroy enemies and interact with the world around him. There are also NPCs in the world with which the player can interact to find out more about the world's history and a Quest System that guides the player through the game.
After Development on The Journey Above concluded, our group split apart to work on different projects. Myself and our 3D Artists and Game Designer wanted to continue evolving the World, so we decided to work as a Trio on Reflections. I took on the role of Solo Developer, meaning I was responsible for all Code in the Game once again. Sound Design and Music were my tasks once again as well, but in addition to this, I also took on the role of Writer, as the story for this game was supposed to be very expansive, considering our dream to one day turn it into a full game.
In this project I was able to use my, now rather expansive, knowledge of the Unity Engine. In addition to making use of past knowledge, this game also allowed me my first proper insight into Quests and Enemy AI, which I used a lot of my time on.
In the Sound Department the natural and calming sounds of nature could mostly be reinterpreted from The Journey Above. What made this game interesting was creating sounds for the more magic-focused abilities and also the enemies, which were a blend between ghost-like and mechanical. Reflections includes 'only' three Soundtracks due to time constraints nearing the end of the project.
This Trailer was not made by me
The Journey Above
For contractual reasons with my university, I am not allowed to provide the download link for this project.
The Journey Above was the second game project that was created during my third semester studies.
It is a third-person action-adventure game with a focus on puzzle and platforming elements. It was once again built in the Unity engine.
As the main character of the game, you have to explore the beautiful nature-filled world on the back of the giant whale you live on. The player's goal is to uncover the mysteries of the factory and the conspiracy surrounding the whale's impending death. As the game progresses, the player unlocks five skills that he can use to overcome increasingly complex puzzles and parkour sections. There are also NPCs in the world with which the player can interact to find out more about the world's history.
Due to the larger group size of this project (10 people), the distribution of tasks was slightly different here. I took on the role of Lead Developer, i.e. I distributed the tasks between myself and the other developer, but also generally continued to do the majority of the programming. Sound Design and Music were my tasks once again as well.
In this project I was able to expand my knowledge of the Unity engine, but also of dependency injection. In addition, this game also gave me insights into physics-based player movement, abilities and more complex UI dialogues.
In the Sound Department, I once again placed a lot of emphasis on the ambience of the world we were creating. Be it in the natural and calming sounds of nature, but also in the metallic and unpleasant background noise of the factory. In comparison to the first project, The Journey Above includes six specially created soundtracks, which were adapted to the ambience of their respective region.
This Trailer was not made by me
Prisoner's Curse
A Mystery in Notes
For contractual reasons with my university, I am not allowed to provide the download link for this project.
Prisoner's Curse: A Mystery in Notes was the first game project I worked on as part of my second semester studies.
The game is a First-Person Horror Game created using the Unity engine.
You play as a researcher stranded on an abandoned prison ship and have to try to escape. To do this you have to find 10 hidden objects, while you can also find notes by exploring the area that tell the story of the ship.
In this game I took on the role of the team's (consisting of 6 people) sole developer and the Sound Designer/Composer. This taught me how to work independently and create my own workflow that would work with the given time constraints.
In this project I was also able to familiarize myself with the concepts of dependency injection, but also the general operations of the Unity engine.
In terms of Sound Design, ambient horror was particularly important in this game. There are small audio cues in many places that are intended to creep out or frighten the player. I also created two soundtracks, which were intended to underline the spooky atmosphere of the game.
This Trailer was not made by me