EDEN

EDEN is a 3D third person survival game created for my Summer Studio class durring the summer of 2021, in production at the same time as Thriller Theater and Bears With Guns. It was made with a team of three people, including myself as the programmer, a lead designer, and a producer. It was created with the intention of finding what challenges a survival game would hold, as well as the specific needs of one with a non-human player character. It exists now as a vertical slice of a potentially bigger game, focusing on the core resources and systems to complete the game loop, including a day/night cycle, and a full player character life cycle.

Features/Things I built:

• System architecture
• Player interactions and controls
• Game system implementation
• Model and animation integration
• UI and menu implementation

System Overview

The core game loop of the game is exploring the environment and balancing your various resources. I built various systems that interconnect and work off of each other, to increase the game's complexity. The player can move and sprint, and can look around with the mouse, or look without moving the player character by holding 'L'. The Survival System manages the four basic needs the player has to keep track of, being Food, Water, Heat, and Shelter. If Food, Water, or Heat get too low, the player's health will drop, but will be regained if the needs are well balanced. Shelter is moreso a backend stat the impacts stamina and exhaustion. As the player moves, they will use up stamina in the Stamina System, but can regain it by standing still. As the player expends stamina, they will start becoming tired, which reduces the maximum stamina. By sleeping in the shade using the Rest System, the player can end their exhaustion, but if left onchecked, the player will faint for a longer period of time. As time goes on, the player character will also grow in the Growth System, once their age passes certain age brackets, their their size, maximum health, movement speed, and need capacities increase.

System Complexity

This project's primary challenge, other than working in 3D, is that all of its systems are interconnected. I had to be concious to avoid excess coupling between different parts of the game, as they each talked to each other. How well each of the four resources were managed impacted the player's health; the player's current age impacts their move speed, health and resource caps, and exhaustion; their exhaustion affects their stamina which restricts their movement and can force them to sleep; etc. If we had more time during the project I would have liked to spend more time balancing these interactions.