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The Missing Case Of John Doe (2021)
When Timmie mysteriously loses his missing plushie, John Doe, one night, he must use his imagination and wits to investigate the mystery and find the culprit.
Genre - 2D Side Scroller, Mystery, Narrative, Puzzle
Platform - Windows PC
Game Engine - Unity
Production Duration - 8 weeks
Team Size - 3 people
Role - Dialogue System Designer, Narrative Lead
Investigate Testimonies
Examine what each ‘witness’ is saying and select the key words in each sentence.
Find the contradiction in his sentence to advance the story
Players should carefully pay attention to what they say as it may hold inconsistences or a a further clue to evidence in the mystery.
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EXPLORE FOR EVIDENCE
Search around the house to gather evidence to uncover the mystery behind John Doe’s disappearance.
Players are required to look around the house to find items that would shed some light on the mystery. Clues to where each item can be found are gathered through investigating witnesses, or environmental tells.
The Witnesses
Search around the house to gather evidence to uncover the mystery behind John Doe’s disappearance.
Beary Bernstein
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Timmie's favorite toy until John Doe came around. While bubbly and seemingly jolly, he has a grudge against John Doe
Bunnie Von BonBon
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Timmie's sister's plushie. A high-class lady with the tendencies for the finer things in life, like carrots and morning television
Boss Beaks
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Timmie's plushie. A ne'er do well who is always up to no good. He has eyes on everyone but is known to be interested with Bunnie
Players are required to look around the house to find items that would shed some light on the mystery. Clues to where each item can be found are gathered through investigating witnesses, or environmental tells.
About the production
IDEATION PHASE
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During the ideation, the original idea for the project was a slightly more serious noire investigation game. Where the player can switch between 3 suspects in an interrogation room who each have an eccentric personality that would be based on exaggerated stereotypical archetypes associated with the genre.
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However, due to personal preferences between the rest of the team, we decided to rework the atmospheric element of the game and went for the current more comical iteration of a child pretending to be a noire detective
pRODUCTION PHASE
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Within production, I was left in charge of the dialogue system, as well as the progression logic of the game. As obtaining clues and speaking to witnesses were interconnected core mechanics of the game, I worked on them simultaneously as it was inefficient to work on one first over the other.
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Most of the project went off swimmingly. However, there was a slight problem in wrapping up the entire narrative of the game as there was not enough time to make new art assets. To work around it, I created an epilogue scene with only words being typed in on the screen, reminiscent of a typewriter in a noire detective flick. Furthermore, once the epilogue is shown, it would automatically scroll down and flow directly to the credits. Hence, not only was it a cost effective way to end the game, but fits the theme as well.
post mortem
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The team worked like a well-oiled machine and we rarely needed to rush or thoroughly check up on each others work. By the time the project was done, we still had a few weeks before the deadline and used the remaining time to worked more on polishing up the game.
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However, I realized that the code I had written was a little to messy and not flexible for others to use, a habit that I took note of for the next projects I would work on in the future.