GABRIELA LEÃO | GAME DESIGN
Developer Log
Point & Click Investigative Game
24.01.2023
I'm currently working on a point and click investigative game, using Unreal Engine and blueprints.
Summing up the idea: the main character will be a police inspector from Rio de Janeiro, who is called to a crime scene at the top of a building. The player must talk to NPCs (everyone in the building, suspects or not), collect clues and then arrange facts and clues on the police inspector's notebook. In the end, they'll be able to solve the murder.
I have already sketched (just skeched!) some characters and backgrounds, this is a little bit of the style idea:
The main character
Her partner
NPC Police Officer
But, for now, I'm creating the main mechanics, starting with what I'd have the most difficulty with. The first of which was the dialogue system. I need a system with branched dialogues, that allows the player to choose different answers and actions. With the help from a Reids Channel tutorial, I created the basis of this system and started implementing a few details.
In this test below, I'm already able to assign different dialogue's to different NPCs, work with the branches, change the speaker and attach events to chosen actions (this is not demonstrated, but was already prepared)
The images have nothing to do with the game, they are just place holders.
With the dialogue system ready, my next step is learning how to implement a inventory with a drag and drop option. I'm choosing to dedicate some time to a drag and drop function since I believe it will make the game far more enjoyable to play. It will be used to drag clues and facts to the inspector's notebook, and rearrenge tem as the player pleases. I think this will turn out 'juicier' them simply clicking to assign places to clues and facts.
I'll be posting uptades!
06.02.2023
Drag and Drop Inventory Update
I created an inventory widget from wich you can drag objects, and either return them to the scene, place them over a NPC/Game Object, or place it on a notebook widget. Here is a video of how it's going! I'm still facing a little issue with recognition of the mouse button click, but the general settings are working alright.
Next, I'll figure out how to make it so the player can flip the pages of the notebook (with an animation), create different pages, add inventory itens to notes and such.
02.03.2023
The Notebook so far
After some time away, I came back to the project and started developing an option for the interactive notebook. I'd like to keep things 2D, and so far this is what I have. A flipbook will play and then widgets will get changed.
I'll try and improve the animation to see if it works better, even though it will always flip blank of generic pages. So far, it looks weird.
But before worrying about the appearence, I'll work on making the notebook interactable, so that players can drop objects on the gray areas.
I don't hate the flipbook...
20.03.2023
Saving Information
A small update. To make sure everything was working properly, I dedicated some time to work on the game save. It took me a little while to arrange a nice way to save inventory information, but now it is working just fine.
With the Game Save done, I went back to working on the game mechanics.
20.04.2023
A Demo
After some market reaserch, I decided it would be a better idea to first release a short demo. It will be more of a visual novel, with the same main characters during an interrogation of a murder suspect. The mechanichs will be simpler, mainly choices during dialogue that will result in 4 or 5 different endings. I came across the demo 'One Night, Hot Springs', I thought it was a lovely idea and dediced to do something similar.
I'm currently writing it.
The branching dialogues