Blinded
Final Product
Blinded is a gripping first-person horror adventure where you awaken in the heart of a dark, unfamiliar city, jolted from sleep by a violent lightning strike. Disoriented and unsure of where you are, you discover an old hand radio and to your surprise, a stranger’s voice crackles through, offering cryptic guidance to help you escape.
But you’re not alone in this terrifying city; you’re forced to rely on your wits and resilience to survive. As you navigate the treacherous streets, you’ll battle nightmarish threats and solve intricate puzzles left behind by an unseen hand. With every step, the danger grows, and your path forward becomes more uncertain.
In the final stretch, you face the ultimate challenge: a broken-down car that holds the key to your escape. Can you repair it and drive to freedom? Or will the city’s dark secrets claim you first?
In the end, with the radio’s mysterious voice still guiding you, you finally escape—only to realize that your journey may be far from over.
Importance of playtesting
Back in my previous school, I was taught a simple yet powerful quote: “Making a good game means you have to playtest. Making a great game means playtesting, playtesting, and, guess what? More playtesting.” I understood the importance of playtesting, but this project really hit me with the reality of just how crucial it is.
While working on the different sections of my level, I tried to put myself in the shoes of a new player. Sure, this helped me in some ways, but it wasn’t enough to predict how a player would actually behave. When I watched the first playtest, I was stunned. I had completely misjudged where the player would go, what they’d notice, and what they would figure out. There were moments that seemed obvious to me simple things I thought players would instinctively know but in reality, they didn’t. For example, I assumed players would understand they needed to find a certain object to progress, but they completely missed it.
That first playtest was an eye-opener. I realized how many assumptions I had made about what players would do, and how many of those assumptions were wrong. After that, I took playtesting seriously. I started reaching out to anyone I could find to play my game and give feedback. The data and insights I gathered from these playtests along with the feedback helped in ways I never expected. It became clear that the more I played, the better my game would become.
Workflow
In Blinded, given the time I had to work on it, there’s actually a surprising amount of content you can experience. If you’re already familiar with the game, you could probably finish it in 2-3 minutes. But for a brand-new player, the experience will likely take around 30 minutes on average.
This was made possible thanks to my efficient workflow. I leveraged some of my experience in Unity and applied it to my Unreal project, which allowed me to streamline the development process. I introduced an Events/Callers workflow, which made creating interactive puzzles for players much easier. A key example of this is the generators. These are PuzzleInteractables that trigger multiple actors upon completion, and this system was applied to a variety of other interactive elements as well. Dialog worked in a similar way when the player triggers a specific event, it could call up multiple dialogues or even trigger enemy spawns, among other things.
By drawing on the lessons I learned from Unity and adapting them to Unreal, I was able to efficiently build both interactive sections and the underlying game behavior. This approach significantly improved my workflow, allowing me to create a richer and more dynamic game experience.