Dangerous Imagination
Skills Developed
- Unreal Engine 5
- UE5 Blueprints
- Documentation
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Mechanic Design
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Project Management
Main Roles
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Designer
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Programmer
Overview
Dangerous Imagination is a Real Time Strategy game. The player controls a child trying to stay up past their bedtime who must defend their alarm clock from the wrongdoing of their toys. To prevail, the player must scavenge items from around their house without being caught and defend their room until midnight.
Pre-production
Before I could begin creating my game idea, I needed to plan out its design pillars and core gameplay loops. With these, I could more easily implement my ideas into the game in a way that fit my initial concept.
Mechanic Design
Since the player should be trying to push their luck throughout the game, I created a noise system that tracks the player’s actions and a roaming parent that would check on the player’s room if they made too much noise or strayed from their room. In addition, the player would need to scavenge objects for their defence from around the house, risking being caught by the roaming parent.
To communicate how loud the player is being, I created a UI bar that would update to show the player's current noise.
An early sketch of the noise bar.
Unreal Engine 5 Iteration and Testing
This project was my first time developing a game in Unreal Engine 5 on my own, so I had to become acquainted with its systems if I wanted to finish the prototype before the deadline. I spent two weeks implementing the core mechanics and systems, followed by playtests using fellow designers from the competition to pick out problems with my game. By using their feedback, I was able to improve my game in ways that I had not anticipated, creating a better product overall.
Showcase Video
An additional requirement for this competition was a showcase video to present the game and my creative decisions. I made use of Adobe’s Premiere Pro software as well as Audacity to create the video found at the top of this page.