James Schaffer

About This Game

You play as a security guard in a facility. The darkness has escaped, a living shadow which envelops all life it touches, each time growing stronger. It behaves much like a shadow and is 'scared' of light, shrinking away when exposed to large amounts. The darkness has damaged parts of the facility and you have to navigate through the facility using your flashlight to solve puzzles repairing the facility and making your way out of the facility. You have to use your torch to open up paths for lasers which solve puzzles, they are another experiment gone wrong when the darkness escaped. You have to search the level for clues for door codes, find out what is happening and keep yourself alive with batteries scattered around the facility. You want to escape to survive and care little for the faceless overseer that controls the facility.

I worked on making all of the art, sfx and music as well as lots of the programming. I wrote the data and game managing scripts which hold the game together and in the future will allow for easy addition of a progression system with levels as well as allowing for the pause and setting system I built. I also spent a lot of time working on the gimmick of the game, the darkness system and how it interacts with puzzles, this was very interesting to do. I used a polygon generated each frame with a particle system to achieve the visuals and used the same polygon to interact with the environment such as the lasers. The lasers were one of the biggest challenges, effectively repeatedly stepping forward checking if it went through something and then adjusting its path until it hit darkness, a solid wall or a receiver. This was difficult to do due to the nature of the constantly changing complex polygon but was interesting to implement. Another part I had a major part in designing and building the level, trying to build the backstory and mood into the game.