Overview
Don’t Look Back is a Point-and-Click Thriller Escape Room where you must escape the car of a Serial Killer who has chosen you as the newest member of his “family”. You do this by exploring and investigating the car, looking for items you can use and combine to reach other items and, ultimately, find something you can use against the Driver. But you must be careful, as he’ll be looking back to make sure you’re not misbehaving, and he will not hesitate to punish you if he catches you.
As one of the Game Designers, my main responsibilities involved creating and setting up the logic of the Driver, specifically setting up when he’d look back at the player and when he’d look forward again. Additionally, I was also in charge of placing the different items throughout the car, as well as setting up the placement of the set locations the player can go to in the car and the UI buttons that would take the player to those locations. I placed the locations in areas to create a balance between having enough space to explore the car and the challenge of having to return to the starting seat when the driver looks back. Likewise, I placed the UI buttons in areas on the screen so that the player could logically guess where the button would take them.
Player getting punished for getting caught away from the starting seat
Progress
First Build
The animation being a little weird
Tutorial
Victory
Handkerchief
Game Over
Almost There
Buttons turn red when they take you away from safety.
The ending sequence for the knife ending
My first objective was to get the system controlling the Driver looking back and forth working, no matter how crude it would be. As such, I used a few different timers to keep track of the different states the driver would be in, as well as using these different animation states to control when the Driver would punish the player and when he’d return to a neutral state.
However, while the model and some animations were in there for the driver, there were issues that we encountered that caused the default idle animation to not import properly, causing confusion for when he was actually looking back.
Removing the shadow with the flashlight
Making Progress
After resolving the animation issues, I turned my attention to setting up the items and pathways the player would take to get the different endings. As such, on top of moving the camera positions around and moving items into more appropriate positions, I also set up some unique item interactions, specifically the shadow that covers the key that gets removed with the flashlight.
Additionally, I had set up the different win and lose conditions for the player. For win conditions, I got it set up so that when the player uses certain items on the Driver, it’ll give the player the victory screen. Likewise, if the player gets caught by the Driver three times or runs out of time, the game over screen would be given.
Shock Effect
Rearview Mirror UI
As we received more feedback on the game, we started planning out what final adjustments would be needed. For myself, I focused on getting a tutorial screen set up to teach the player how to actually play the game. On top of that, I created a basic shock effect to further emphasize the punishment to the player. I also implemented the art assets for the rearview mirror UI to help give the player more information about when the Driver will look back, while also implementing extra logic to it in order to make it look like the Driver is looking around instead of simply being a static image.
This was also the point when all the rest of the items were finally made. As a result, I spent some time getting them into position and implementing the final piece of item logic, which was having the correct item in order to reach and acquire the handkerchief.
Final Build
By the time we reached the deadline, we had most of the things we wanted in there. Among the final things I worked on, I had set up the various different ending screens using the different assets created by our artist and sound designer to put together the sequences that would show the player the aftermath of whichever ending they got.
On top of that, this was my final chance to implement ideas we had gotten from previous feedback. Among the smaller balance changes, I also implemented some logic that would change the color of all the camera buttons to red, with the exception of the one that would return the player to the starting seat the fastest. This was done as a way to further express the dangerous situation to the player and help guide them back to safety without getting rid of too much of the challenge of having to return to the starting seat before you get a strike.