TRAINING GROUNDS
PROJECT OVERVIEW
PLATFORM : PC
ENGINE : UNREAL ENGINE 4
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE : Blueprints Visual Scripting
PRODUCTION TIME : 1 MONTH
TEAM SIZE : Me
PROJECT DESCRIPTION : TRAINING GROUNDS is a 3D, Single Player, First Person Shooter for PC.
MY ROLE / DUTIES :
- Project & Production Planning and Management
- Production and Design Documentation
- QA & Testing
- Game Design
- UX & UI Design
- Game Systems & AI Design
- VFX & SFX Design
- Narrative Design
- Levels Design & Assembly
- Programming
PROJECT SPECIFICATIONS
GAME FEATURES :
- In game narrative
- 2 different weapons
- Game Timer for the player to beat
- A dangerous and intricate maze
GAME NARRATIVE :
In TRAINING GROUNDS the player takes the role of Ash, an IT technician who is kidnapped by a paramilitary extraction team of SYNTH Industries to be used as a glorified lab rat. Ash is heavily drugged and plugged into an experimental machine.
Unaware of the situation and circumstances of what has happened to him, Ash wakes up within the testing simulation known as “Training Grounds”.
The Training Grounds are a virtual testing field designed to record data, and to observe neural responses during the interaction between a person's mind and the experimental technology developed by SYNTH Industries.
It is also an environment where “candidates” are subjected to different kinds of exposure and their behaviour is observed.
As Ash fully wakes up he is readily tasked with finding five keys that are somewhere within the labyrinth, without being given any explanation or reasons.
Ash has to find these keys and open the big door otherwise “he will fail the test”.
The only information given to Ash are hints and implications that his actions bear great meaning and are of great importance, no matter what they might be.
Every time Ash dies within the simulation or fails the test, or even succeeds, his memory of the experience is wiped out, the test resets and Ash wakes up again at the start of the simulation, unaware and confused.
Ash is being kept hostage within the machine and it has been so for a while.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION :
In TRAINING GROUNDS the player has to find 5 keys scattered throughout a maze to open a gate, behind which there is the end game.
The player has to navigate and survive the labyrinth, find the keys and make it back before the timer runs out.
Throughout the labyrinth there are enemies - killer holograms, roaming within the environment moving constantly and they will chase the player on sight, detonating themselves once they reach the player.
There are many of them.
The necessity to be constantly on the move to keep distance from the multiple roaming enemies, the lack of indications and directions within the labyrinth and the pressure of the timer attempt to create within the player the necessity to be quick of thought and reaction and to stimulate memory and navigation skills.
This project begun as a practice and learning endeavour until its functionality and degree of depth proved itself worthwhile to be transformed and encapsulated into a small and finite project.