[NDA] Project Chimera - Futuristic Detective Game

Project Overview: Internal project demo of a mobile game. Taking place in the future, this detective game would have players solve the mystery of a missing child. Calling businesses in the city, gathering clues, and culminating in a high stakes suspect chase and interrogation. This project is covered by an NDA.

My Role: Game Designer, Narrative Systems Designer, Software Engineer

Project Duration: 8 Months (Fall 2022 - Spring 2023)

Project Status: Shelved due to lack of funds.

Project Used: Unity

Project Goal: To create a mystery detective mobile game. Have an engaging chase and interrogation scene to demo to potential investors and players.

What Did I Do?

Game Designer - Suspect Chase and Interrogation

I also acted as lead game designer for the suspect chase and interrogation scenes - the meat of this project. I collaborated with our narrative lead to write the branching narrative arcs. Using Figma to keep track of all the branches as well as state changes.

The scene would be set as players responding to a suspect sighting in a crowded downtown area.

Players would use voice activated commands like “tackle the suspect”, “try to talk to the suspect”, or “shoot the suspect” to move forward through the scene and try to apprehend the suspect. If players tried to talk to the suspect and gained enough trust, they would move to an interrogation scene where they would get to try to talk down the suspect and convince them to turn themselves in.

I conducted playtests throughout the design and production phases to validate our design and ensure a fun and engaging experience for players.

Narrative Systems Designer

This project used ChatScript - a next generation chatbot engine- to simulate conversation between player and NPC, as well as send player commands to the game engine.

I developed and maintained our ChatScript database, ensuring it matched our game design documents and the ideal player experience.

This involved ensuring multiple iterations of the same voice activated command would work correctly - “chase the subject” “run after the subject” “chase her!” would all work the same, for example.

Software Engineer

I worked closely with the lead software engineer to ensure the Suspect Chase and Interrogation scenes was optimized and working smoothly. We worked in Unity and C# to implement the scene.

I added art and sound assets, pathfinding, and tuned the game experience to create an engaging demo.