By: Autumn Wright, Alexander Kapyruk, Katie Shields, Reese Lodwick, & Harold Dupree
Shade Walk is a single-player stealth game set in the Dresden Files universe. It was developed in Unity with C# in a team of five over the course of five weeks.
In it, players must use spells to distract and evade guards while collecting clues to solve a missing person's case.
My role in development was that of the design lead, but I also acted as one of the major programmers in this project.
Specifically, I was responsible for the spell-casting state machine, invisibility spell functionality, enemy waypoint system, UI implementation, and late-stage polish and bug fixes.
I also designed each of the game's five levels, and oversaw all of our GitHub merges and version control.
In Shade Walk, the player must collect all of the clues in each level to be able to proceed to the next. They must complete every level without being caught to win the game.
They have three main tools to help them accomplish this: a short-range knockout spell, a fiery distraction spell, and recharging invisibility potions.
The knockout spell allows the player to instantly incapacitate unaware enemies from behind, removing them as an obstacle for the rest of the level.
The distraction spell can be used to ignite trash cans and barrels, and will draw the attention of all nearby guards until the flame dies out.
Lastly, the invisibility potion, while slow to use, makes the player completely undetectable until the end of its duration.
However, the player must stay still until they are done drinking it.
Each guard has a set position or patrol route. The player must observe these patterns carefully if they wish to sneak past.
However, if a guard manages to catch sight of the player, they will stop in their tracks and focus on the player, their cone of vision growing in size and following the player until they escape again.
While the player is spotted by a guard, the alert meter will begin to rise. If it fills all the way, the player is considered to be caught and the game is over.
