I would like to create a game which could be played with sound because normally I always doesn’t care too much about sound effects while developing my games. Therefore, I try to restrict information that player can get by screen and make them depend more on sound effects. Thanks to Unreal Engine’s spatial sound system, attenuation function and lighting system, it’s possible to achieve this goal.

Production Log

1. Because this is a single screen game, I choose to use topdown view to get more space for player, so I changed the TopDownBP in Unreal Engine to make it. TopDownBP in Unreal Engine uses mouse click to move the character. However, I changed it to WASD keyboard control for convenience, like 2D The Legend of Zelda game did.
2. To restrict information on screen, I delete all lighting system in the scene to make it completely dark, and add a moveable point light on playerBP.
3. The only way for player to catch the enemy is to spawn the light. I use a point light with timeline to change its intensity and attenuation radius to make it dynamic.
4. In order for the enemy to make footsteps more accurately, I add two notifies when it’s foot touch the ground, and play different footstep sound with them.
5. In order not to let enemy run around and hit the player, I let enemy to detect player’s movement, and only move when player moves.
6. To make the game more challenging, player only wins when the enemy stands in the emission range of the spawned light, if the enemy are too far or too close (can be seen) to the player, player will lose. To make the game playable, I set it to infinite mode. Once the enemy was hatched, it will be spawned in a random place which won’t be too close to player location.
7. I downloaded POLYGON - Heist Pack and used its characters and floors to make the game looks better. Animation in Unreal Engine could be directly used after retargeting.
8. I made a tutorial to make it easier to understand.
9. I made in-game HUD and main menu to make the game more complete.

Input/Control Scheme

Move

WASD

Spawn Light

Space

Pause

Esc

Main Features

Because the game happens in a dark world and player could only use sound to detect enemy, so this game is suggested to played with headphones for a better experience. Sound effects and lighting are carefully tuned. Enjoy it.

Game Mechanic

Hide and seek is a tradition game mechanic, and it’s perfect for my environment, so I designed to make player to catch the enemy in a completely dark environment by hearing the volume of footstep.