Final Product
Hidden Heroes is a narrative-driven management game inspired by real events, set in a Belgian village during the German occupation of World War II. Players run a local bakery, balancing scarce resources while navigating morally complex dialogue with villagers, soldiers, and resistance members.
With seven fully realized characters, a branching narrative, and multiple endings, every choice forces players to decide between self-preservation and helping others, where even small actions can have lasting consequences.
My Personal Work
Interactive Game Dialogue System
I designed and implemented the core architecture of a modular dialogue system, later expanded in collaboration with my team. I integrated the system into Unity, allowing branching dialogue, player choices, and narrative logic to be fully data-driven and scalable across the game.
Later I also implemented “Puppets” which allowed use to play any dialogue at any point instead of sequenced.
Gameplay Elements
I contributed to several core gameplay systems, including player movement and floor-based navigation. I also developed supporting systems used by the dialogue framework to trigger gameplay interactions such as animations, sound effects, music cues, and in-game events. Additionally, I implemented item reading and inspection mechanics with custom localization support.
UI / UX
I designed and implemented a wide range of UI elements across the game, including the dialogue HUD, resource panels, day reports, and additional in-game interfaces. I handled both the underlying logic and visual polish, integrating animations to improve clarity and player feedback.
I also developed the UI and UX for reading and inspecting items, focusing on usability and immersion through sound cues, hover states, and responsive interactions.
Cutscenes
I worked on creating and implementing cutscenes in Unity using the Timeline workflow. My contributions include designing the intro sequence, a looping main-menu scene, and the climactic shooting scene, ensuring smooth transitions and cinematic presentation throughout the game.
Narrative Tool
For this project, we collaborated with a student-writer from another school. Believing that creative professionals should focus on storytelling without being hindered by code, I proposed creating a custom narrative tool that would allow writers to craft the game’s story while still controlling its core mechanics.
Samir Vertahov and I designed the tool’s use case to maximize usability for writers and other team members. Samir developed the tool itself, while I handled its integration into the game, ensuring it could directly influence gameplay systems.
We iterated extensively on the tool, eventually adding support for custom Unity commands that could be exported and used within the narrative files, giving writers even greater flexibility to shape the game’s experience without touching code.
Screenshots
