Harken is a stealth adventure game that tests your environment awareness and timing. As you explore the dark and mysterious mansion they must use what they can find in the environment to find safe passage in a place where everything is trying to stop you.
Core Mechanics
Harken is a played from an over the shoulder perspective where the player must explore and use the environment to progress through the game. The goal of the game is to reach the exit of the level however there are enemies and obstacles which will try to prevent the player from reaching the goal. The player is able to use the environment to hide or trick the bad guys. Once the player has solved the puzzles and reached the end, they are able to progress to the next level.
Support Mechanics
To avoid enemies the player can use the environment to stay out of sight such as hiding within “safe zones”, e.g. Hiding in shadows, behind furniture, in boxes etc. The player may also draw from an arsenal of items (such as a freeze ray and an invisibility hat) to get past enemies. The levels themselves have sandbox elements, such as turning on a radio to draw enemies to the noise and finding hidden shortcuts to speed up movement through the
level.
Prototype Development
We are using the Unity game engine to develop the prototype. After the first prototype, our team had more confidence in making a second one. While the art team are creating art assets, we the programming team are working on character controls, objects collision and A.I. enemies. Since I have enjoyed working on A.I. including A* pathfinding, I have the honour to take on implementing an A.I system for the enemies.
For our A.I. enemies, it is required to act in a certain behaviour :-
Due to such short time constraint, I have implemented simple state machine for the A.I. enemies' to decide on a certain behaviour. The patrolling is based on picking a random point around his designated area, whereas the chasing and fleeing are based on A* pathfinding (reference to my previous project)
After few days of non-stop coding and bugs fixing, the simple A.I. system was completed as required. Our team member have tried and the A.I. enemies' behaviour look awesome. They were patrolling in their area but when the player get closer, they will start chasing the player. However, if the player get into the hiding square, they will start to flee and return to the original area. This is quite a satisfying achievement in less than 3 days!!
Same as the first prototype, I would like to find out how this game will perform in the mobile. Hence, I have also implemented the two joystick controls in the game and some background music so it can be nicely played on the iOS & Android phone. The result looks awesome and I think the joystick touch is the best control method as compared to the button press.
For my interest, I have also explored the new Mecanim system and successfully implemented the animations for all the characters last week. Especially I like coding the animation and blending them together so the player have more control on the character's movement and actions.
Harken has its unique fun element as I enjoy play testing while further working on it. I think the game has got its potential in the mobile platform if the theme is appealing and characters are interesting, even though the gameplay is rather simple. Thanks guys again for the wonderful idea and hard work!!!
Please feel free to experience by Click To Play
Enjoy!!!
Core Mechanics
Harken is a played from an over the shoulder perspective where the player must explore and use the environment to progress through the game. The goal of the game is to reach the exit of the level however there are enemies and obstacles which will try to prevent the player from reaching the goal. The player is able to use the environment to hide or trick the bad guys. Once the player has solved the puzzles and reached the end, they are able to progress to the next level.
Support Mechanics
To avoid enemies the player can use the environment to stay out of sight such as hiding within “safe zones”, e.g. Hiding in shadows, behind furniture, in boxes etc. The player may also draw from an arsenal of items (such as a freeze ray and an invisibility hat) to get past enemies. The levels themselves have sandbox elements, such as turning on a radio to draw enemies to the noise and finding hidden shortcuts to speed up movement through the
level.
Prototype Development
We are using the Unity game engine to develop the prototype. After the first prototype, our team had more confidence in making a second one. While the art team are creating art assets, we the programming team are working on character controls, objects collision and A.I. enemies. Since I have enjoyed working on A.I. including A* pathfinding, I have the honour to take on implementing an A.I system for the enemies.
For our A.I. enemies, it is required to act in a certain behaviour :-
- Patrol (Enemy's original spot)
- Chase (Player's Character)
- Attack (Player's Character)
- Flee (Back to Enemy's original spot)
Due to such short time constraint, I have implemented simple state machine for the A.I. enemies' to decide on a certain behaviour. The patrolling is based on picking a random point around his designated area, whereas the chasing and fleeing are based on A* pathfinding (reference to my previous project)
After few days of non-stop coding and bugs fixing, the simple A.I. system was completed as required. Our team member have tried and the A.I. enemies' behaviour look awesome. They were patrolling in their area but when the player get closer, they will start chasing the player. However, if the player get into the hiding square, they will start to flee and return to the original area. This is quite a satisfying achievement in less than 3 days!!
Same as the first prototype, I would like to find out how this game will perform in the mobile. Hence, I have also implemented the two joystick controls in the game and some background music so it can be nicely played on the iOS & Android phone. The result looks awesome and I think the joystick touch is the best control method as compared to the button press.
For my interest, I have also explored the new Mecanim system and successfully implemented the animations for all the characters last week. Especially I like coding the animation and blending them together so the player have more control on the character's movement and actions.
Harken has its unique fun element as I enjoy play testing while further working on it. I think the game has got its potential in the mobile platform if the theme is appealing and characters are interesting, even though the gameplay is rather simple. Thanks guys again for the wonderful idea and hard work!!!
Please feel free to experience by Click To Play
Enjoy!!!