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Ensnared - On Steam

Project Type

Published Video Game

Production life cycle

January 2023 - July 2024

My roles in this project were:

1. Lead Systems Designer
2. Lead Level Designer
3. Producer
4. Lead Programmer
5. Technical Artist
5. Publisher
6. Team Lead

Ensnared is a short-form horror experience in which I had the pleasure to act as team lead, whilst holding an intern position at Zygobot Studios. For this I mentored, and was part of a team of talented, passionate, and dedicated artists, designers, and programmers to get this horror experience to its polished, as well as published state. This game experience taught me to always believe in the talent around me to help me create great worlds. Not to mention the boosting in confidence with game systems design and development. In the end, this project allowed me to mold my first iteration of my game development workflow.

Visit our Steam page at:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2810470/Ensnared/

Systematic AI Encounters:

The problem: This game needed AI interactions to give the player meaningful action in between luls of solving puzzles.

My solution: I gave the player 5 different types of enemies and one spawner to build tension.

Carefully crafted, tested, and iterated upon systems:

The Problem: We needed an over arching reference system as to ease our pains of referencing objects in the world.
My Solution: I created an overarching reference system using the game's Game Mode script which was fed by every object in the world as they spawned. This made referencing any actor easy and attainable by anyone in the team.

All systems were built to speak with each other:

The Problem: We needed all systems to be able to speak to each other during gameplay as to ease any referencing used to manipulate the players' experience.

My Solution: The Game Mode script in this game is saved as reference inside all world objects upon spawning.

Referencing made easy--->

Paper Prototyping:

The Problem: We needed to visualize where our puzzles would be placed in the world.

My Solution: I pulled some graph paper out and went to town drawing floor plans to figure out where these puzzles would best fit.

Valve Escape Sequence - Prototype:

The Problem: We needed robust puzzles to engage the player.

My Solution: My design involves thorough prototyping, whilst always iterating on what feels best from the player's perspective.

<---Using Technical Design

Iterate to win:

The Problem: Puzzles needed to also speak to the game world with ease for a smooth player experience.

My Solution: Using our systems protocols, all our systems speak to the world through our Game Mode script, giving the player a smoother experience when receiving feedback.

Loading game objects in the background:

The Problem: We needed the game to run well on simpler machines, if needed.

My Solution: Most of the objects in the world will spawn in and out of the world according to the players' current location through the spook collisions placed around the levels.

Demons attack:

The Problem: We needed our AI to notice the player in order to engage them in combat.

My Solution: I programmed several AI behavior trees as well as simple state machines to engage the player.

Designed, programmed, and maintained various AI behavior trees as well as simple state machines to engage the player.

Ghouly Behavior Tree:

The Problem: We needed enemies which differ in behavior yet still all noticed the player.

My Solution: I created a modular behavior tree with variables used in all enemy AI behavior trees and controller scripts.

Gruum Behavior Tree --->

<---Dungeon Enemy Encounter

Player Controller:

The Problem: We needed clear communication between the player and the game world as the player traverses this world.

My Solution: All communications are passed through the Game Mode at the beginning of any object's life.

Enemy AI Controllers:

The Problem: We needed clear communication between the enemy AI and the game world as the enemy traverses this world.

My Solution: All enemy controllers were created as children of a base controller which allowed us to control all the enemies modularly, per instance.

Player Controller--->

Events on Collision:

The Problem: We needed the player to have events happening around them as they're moving through this world.

My Solution: I created a collision actor with a system controlling different element in the players' environment, according to where they currently are.

Ensnared is now on Steam!

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