Martin Apostolov - Devlog

My project is a game called The Search, a 2D horror game in which you are searching for your missing brother while avoiding the roaming monsters. My roles in the development of this game was lighting design and effects, both roles I have taken on for the first time. Originally I was also supposed to be the music composer however due to my lack of experience the tast proved far too great.

What I contributed to the project:

-        Added weather effects to every level.

-        Added background noises to the levels with fitting audio levels

-        Created a working lighter for the player to navigate the dark levels.

-        Remixed and altered the background music to best fit the game.

-        Gave the monsters a voice, altering it slightly to best fit them.

Weather Effects:

The two weather effects I added to the game are rain and fog, both made using particles. Due to not being previously familiar with how to do it I followed these tutorials: Fog (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQbzqFjyrwg&t=73s), Rain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrpuJkjaSiQ)

-        For the rain I used a particle system to generate random raindrops, using the following settings along with adding an Audio Source and putting a fitting storm sound clip taken from freesound.org to serve as the background noise.

-        For the fog I made a visual effect asset along with a URP 2D asset with rendering. There is also a circular collider around the player which removes a small layer of the fog.

The following code was used to help sort the order of the fog

And to make the area around the player less obscured I added lines 3, 10 and 22 that let the player character interact with the fog properly.

Due to our second level taking place inside the fog has been reduced by around half and only the sound of the rain persists.

Lighter:

Our group agreed that the player uses a lighter to see in the dark so I added a simple code that lets the player turn the lighter on and off by setting the status of a small 2d light attached to the player using the button E for On and Q for Off. This was done with the following code which I recycled from a previous project.

Monster Voices:

Giving voice to our monsters was relatively simple, I found a sound file I liked, lowered the pitch to 0.32 and attached it to the monsters.

Scraped Ideas:

Unfortunately, due to my lack of knowledge I was unable to implement every feature I wanted to, forcing me to scrap the idea of lightning flashes.

Challenges:

One of the main challenges was definitely setting up the fog as most of the help from tutorials I could find was from older versions of the engine. However, the biggest challenge was definitely trying to compose a song for the game which I unfortunately failed at due to my lack of experience.

Assets we used:

Sprites

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/environments/pixel-art-top-down-basic-1...

https://penzilla.itch.io/top-down-retro-interior

https://seliel-the-shaper.itch.io/character-base

Backgrounds

https://unsplash.com/photos/green-trees-on-forest-during-daytime-TySkkTBvSlE

https://unsplash.com/photos/a-cracked-dry-ground-FFG7RY7IsOQ

Sound effects

https://freesound.org/people/Garuda1982/sounds/636418/

https://freesound.org/people/Vinrax/sounds/166036/