Hebald Forest
Project Breakdown
- Platform: PC
- Engine: Unreal Engine 5
- Team Size: 19
- Duration: 5 months
- Build: Itch.io
Team
The team consisted of 19 members:
- 3 Coordinators
- 4 Developers
- 2 3D Artists
- 2 2D Artists
- 1 VFX Artist
- 1 Level Designer
- 1 Narrative Designer
- 5 Sound Designers
Brief
Hebald Forest is open-world exploration game developed during my second year of my Masters Degree at Université Côte d'Azur in Cannes, France, built with a team of 19 in Unreal Engine 5.
Project Goals
Our primary goal was to deliver a playable demo of Hebald Forest for the International Games Festival (FIJ) in Cannes, France.
The demo had to showcase a functional tutorial, a village with NPCs and quests, and a forest for exploration and progression, while highlighting key systems like the interactive journal, puzzles, and dynamic music. The objective was to present a festival-ready prototype that felt cohesive, intuitive, and showed the project’s potential.
Primary responsibilities
- Project Coordinator
- Scrum Master
- Lead Technical Designer
- Sound & Music Integration
Other hats
- Developer
- Game Designer
- Level Designer
Post Mortem
The game made use of cutting-edge technologies such as Lumen and Nanite. However, these innovations often proved to be more of a challenge than a benefit, introducing performance issues, unexpected bugs, and forcing us to rapidly adapt our workflow to these new systems.
Game Mechanics
1. Notebook
Unlocking skills: You unlock skills like swimming or climbing by typing each one of them on your notebook. The skills are only able to be unlocked once you have spoken to the right NPC and they have spoken the specific word, like climb or swim, which are always annotated in red.
A sketch of the map can also be found in one of the pages, this helps (somewhat) the player navigate through the game.
Some game tips and clues can also be found in the notebook, these tips help the player find out where and how to collect the spheres.
2. Climbing
With the Climb skill unlocked, the player can move sideways along walls before releasing and dropping down. It also allows the player to scale walls upward, reaching the top and continuing on foot.
Even without unlocking Climb, the player can still grab onto ledges or planks to pull themselves up.
Players may also use planks as simple ledges, no Climb required to boost themselves higher.
3. Swimming
The swimming skill is unlocked after speaking with an NPC near the lake and writing the word in the Notebook. Once unlocked, the player can swim using a stamina bar that gradually depletes. If the bar runs out, the player drownsand respawns near the spot of death. Without the skill, jumping into the water immediately causes the player to drown.
My Contributions
1. Tower Rework
Problem: The old puzzle was too simple and had no clear objective, nor was it clear on how to get to the objective, plus it being in the middle of the map was one of the first things players would go after, leading to a weak first impression.
BEFORE
Solution: Reworked the whole area completely by removing all the previous woden towers and replacing them with a tall and flashy tower. Its size immediately catches the attention of the player and makes him feel an urge to climb to the top of the tower and find out what's inside it.
AFTER
2. Cave Rework
BEFORE
Problem: The old cave was too messy with no clear direction of where to go. The main objective that was collecting the gem was poorly designed and had no feedback whatsoever, leaving the player confused at the after leaving the cave, not knowing if he had completed the cave.
AFTER
Solution: A complete overhaul and rework of the cave, with clear objective of where to go right off the bat after entering the cave. A short path on the left takes the player to a closed door, signaling that he should try and get the door open. And the longer but more difficult path on the right with puzzles and platforms to jump on.
3. Improved VFX & SFX for the Fox Statues
Problem: There was no feedback for activating the Fox Statue, leaving the player wondering if he activated it correctly or not.
BEFORE
Solution: Added visual and audio effects after activating the Fox Statue, clearly showing an output for activating the fox correctly.
AFTER
4. Improved VFX & SFX for the Butterfly Puzzle
Problem: The puzzle gave no sound or visual feedback, leaving players unsure if they had triggered it or made any progress.
Solution: Added audio and visual cues for each butterfly placement, with the sound’s pitch rising as the player collected more butterflies to signal progress.
5. Button Activated Door
GIF showing the button activation system working, this button could be connected to any sort of door or activation, like a platform going up and down for example, or any object that has 2 states.
Objects could also be placed on top in order to activate the button and open the door.
Gameplay
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