September 2019 to May 2020 school project Unreal Engine (Blueprint)
A Planet in the Fog is a first person exploration game centered on navigating a treacherous environment and understanding the ecosystem of a planet covered in fog. This was my graduation project and we worked in a team of 9 people. I worked on prototyping the controller at first, then another programmer joined the project and took over controller related features, my responsibilities were to work on UI and systems. Secondarily my role in the team was to handle technical setup, documentation and support for source control or engine related issues.
Pheromone system : The ecosystem of the game relies heavily on pheromones carried by winds around the planet, I opted for using a grid system since it operated on a large scale and didn't need that much precision. Winds are represented by nodes being connected in a directional way and the grid handles the propagation and dissipation of each pheromone type along the winds. I made it possible to easily create different Pheromone Emitters and Pheromone Receivers which respectively emits or detects a specific kind of pheromones. As a result, I worked in collaboration with our level designers to build a tool that would allow them to easily visualize and create connections between the nodes to get the desired winds on the map.
Map and UI : One of the player's main tool is a map that allows them to visualise data they gather on the area in real time. Placing probes on the environment allows the player to visualise on the map the pheromones present in a radius around the probe, and the map also features filters to select which information to show like the winds or a specific type of pheromones. I built the whole feature and handled it's interaction with the pheromone system. The player also gathers information by scanning specimens and unlocking entries in a databes, I took care of building the UI and data management for that feature.