Elusive Spirit
Type: 1st Person Stealth and Card Game on PS4 & PC
Language: C++ / Blueprint
Softwares: Unreal Engine / Perforce / Google Suite
Roles: AI Programmer / Gameplay Programmer / UI Developer
Team Size: 17 people (see Credits screen or LinkedIn)
Duration: 8 months / October 2022 - June 2023
Elusive Spirit is my graduation project, hence the longest project I worked on at school.
The team was composed of 2 Gameplay Programmers, 2 Game Programmers, 4 Game Designers, 6 Game Artists, and 2 Game Producers.
Communication and planning were really important because of the size of the team and the duration of the project. This was initially a problem for us, but improved during production.
For this project, I had to gain much knowledge in C++ as it was the first real project I used C++ in.
From a programming perspective, I first worked on the AI with a colleague, developing various behaviors so that the GDs could choose the best fitting one. The simplest versions were kept in the game because players had trouble navigating the hardest enemies (especially for a short playthrough since we had to aim for 10 minutes).
I then developed almost all the UI (menus, HUD, localization) as well as the dialog/instruction system, by triggering text boxes when specific actions were made and synchronizing the text to the voices.
Of course, I also had to debug Gameplay features to help my fellow programmers, thus modifying some of the Card Abilities.
Developing the game for the PS4 was quite tedious at times because even if most content was compatible thanks to Unreal Engine, some specific bits of code caused some problems and we had to debug it to validate the project on both platforms.
Last but not least, I made a Gamefeel Document and a Big Picture with my GPP colleague, which was important for us since we wanted some emotions to be at the heart of the experience.
