As part of the 2023 Global Games Jam, I worked alongside six others to produce a conceptual idea.
Early stages of the concept were established to interpret the theme literally, and to follow themes of horror, mystery and with stealth based gameplay. Due to the requisites of a personal project of mine I was experimenting with character animation in Unreal Engine, leading my primary responsibility to be in the domain of character animation.
A somewhat fortunate, but equally frustrating accidental situation involving complications with the rig I had been given and the base animations I worked from; since time was limited, I thought it pertinent to get a head start on animation, and the following rig that had been produced did not mix well with the animations I had procured/produced.
The models, once given their respective animation blueprint produced elongated limbs and necks, thinning out their proportions and becoming near skeletal in appearance as opposed to their models originally human-esque physique.
In order to counteract this, I attempted to make superficial changes to the animations, pulling back bones to their proper location to avoid their subsequent *snapping* and improper looping. While their snapping would make the animations certainly seem less natural and possibly even *creepier* than ordinarily intended, I felt it best to fix this issue as much as I could.
Encouraged by my team, particularly the original modeller for the characters as their appearance at the time was not at all as anticipated I continually attempted different methods of recovering their appearance. Deep down I felt I knew that this was contributing to a sunken cost as we were limited on time. Much to the frustration of the artist, I suggested a quick fix, such as trimming and separating the mesh by their joints; head, neck, upper/lower torso, upper/lower arms and legs, pelvis, hands and feet. Parenting these separated segments to the bones of the working animations, I fabricated an almost Frankenstein's Monster approach to fixing the animations at least for the player character. However I insisted that the hostile enemies maintain their stretched proportions. The effect of their elongated limbs significantly amplifying their inherent horrific qualities.
I would find that fixing the animations and experimenting with the animation blueprint would take up the majority of my time over this project. This was regrettable, but a valuable lesson that shortcuts cannot be made in a group project unless communication is 100% understood between disciplines. Otherwise time is wasted on all ends.
We came up with the title of 'Verdant' as a sense of irony, the player seemingly being the only *living* element of the environment. All other things seemingly drained if not void of life, having been abandoned.
I was not in charge of the base gameplay mechanics, however I had taken the time in an attempt to polish what mechanics there were as they had not been programmed past their initial testing phases. Alongside the concept artist who designed the maps I placed objects such as buttons, doors and gateways. Placing enemies as required.
Much progress was lost during Github complications and transfer between branches. Some assets and gameplay elements were salvageable, but much of the polishing was lost within the closing hours of the Global Games Jam.
I plan to return to the project to polish and personally recover the files for an independent submission on Itch.