Jan 2025 - Present | Team Size: 5 | Game Designer | Unreal Engine
Making Contact is a multiplayer alien hunting game where you and your friends can relax in the desert and try to make contact with aliens, while making contact with each other. I am working as the only designer on a team of 5, and we are still working on the project!
MAKING CONTACT
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Defining the Systems
The team knew from the start that we wanted to make a game that lets players hang out with their friends while doing something not too challenging. The concept of a third space, a space separate from home or work, where you can socialize, was our goal.
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After I brainstormed a lot of different game ideas in this genre, the team had most interest in this alien hunting concept where you would drive around the desert with your friends trying to track down evidence of extraterrestrial life. I then spent time making a draft of a Game Design Document to pitch an overall game, seen below.
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The basic idea was that players would work together to collect evidence of aliens, with a variety of tools available to players. Each player could have a different way of helping by using a different tool.
Another important feature for the experience would being having random and bizarre supernatural encounters. Anomalies will roam on their own, and will come and go. by keeping them random, the hope is to give friends memorable experiences personal to them.
Concepts for the watcher close encounter, and the prototype in engine made by our tech artist.
Recently, I reexamined the set of tools I planned and the different close encounters I planned and worked out which tools would pair with which encounters. I tried to keep the number of use cases for each tool relatively even, and have logic and variety to what tools would work on what. Click it to zoom in!
Level Design
Early iteration of the vertical slice
After finishing the Game Design Doc, I helped implement some features and worked on a vertical slice of some areas we could have our game take place in, using some art assets our environment artist made.
After getting something playable in engine that could be used for a vertical slice of the game, I stopped to spend more time thinking about how the final map could look. I started by brainstorming locations we could fit into our game, and got reference images into a slideshow.
After compiling all of these different locales in the slideshow, I drew up a map that stitched all of these different areas together. I am pretty happy with the result, as I think I managed to pack a good bit of variety into a desert map. My plan now is to build this new map in engine, starting with getting a sense for size for each area.
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The game is still a work in progress, so I will try update this page as we make progress!
