I have always loved horror movies, specifically the more experimental ones like Hereditary or Insidious, but never was quite a fan or horror games. Most of them seem to lack a nice balance between an intriguing story and gameplay that goes beyond just scaring players through jumpscares. I have always been a fan of Guillermo Del Toro’s way of creating tragic and beautiful horror stories, which is what I envision Contact to be. 

It is supposed to be a contant battle between surviving the extraterrestrial visits, which impose a immortal threat similar to Alien: Isolation on the player, and detective mechanics inspired by Frogware’s games. The thrill of surviving the visits and finding out about their nature becomes significantly more thrilling due to the effect the visits have on the players minds as well as on the protagonists family. Presenting strong evidence without scaring NPCs away with mindless rambling presents an important part of the game and may impact the overall fate of the characters.

My goals for this Unreal project:

• Creating a rough AI that detects the players presence and hunts them
• Creating a mockup stealth system to iterate on visitation mechanic
• Designing mockup detective mechanics with the help of Unreal Blueprints to show the process of gathering and processing clues
• Designing a mockup dialogue system similar to the Fallout franchise
• Creating an atmosphere that finds the right balance between horror, an emotional story and intriguing detective mechanics