Jasmin Rohde

Portfolio

BA2: Narrative Game - Conception

Enter the mind of Alex, an artist and lead them through their creative process, from inspiration all the way to catharsis.

Team Members

Robert Michrowski - Programmer/Organization
Jasmin Rohde - Programmer/Sound Designer
Kosan Aziz - Artist
Kaloyan Boychev - Concept Artist/Team Lead
Anna Oberhauser - Game Designer
Jon Beck - Game Designer
Jann Pätzold - Music Consultant

Production Year

2021

Platform

PC

Genre

Puzzle Game

Engine

Unreal Engine 5 Early Access

About

Conception follows the journey of Alex, an artist who experiences creative block. They struggle through the creative process to create a painting. Alex experiences inspiration, doubt, agony, epiphany, and catharsis.
As a player you are playing in Alex's mind. You complete puzzles in order to help Alex through the stages of the creative process. These puzzles involve printing out tetris like puzzle blocks. With the puzzle blocks the player is able to build bridges, statues, staircases, and more in order to advance.

Inspiration Narrative

Conception follows the story of Alex as they struggle to complete a painting. The player plays in Alex's head as they go through the emotional rollercoaster of the creative process.

Thematic Levels

Conception takes place over five levels that represent the creative process. Each level is heavily themed with both artistic and mechanical elements. This creates a strong tone and shows the emotional process of Alex, the painter.

Extrusion Puzzles

Players complete puzzles based around arranging tetris-like blocks in 3D. This allows the player to build bridges, staircases, and statues to represent the challenges of creativity.

Personal Contribution

Programming & Sound Design

Interactable Blocks

The player can pick up the blocks, rotate, carry around, place and drop them back to the ground.

2D Tetris Blocks

The 2D versions of the blocks are sprites used for the printing station.

3D Tetris Blocks

The 3D versions are physics based objects and will be printed from the station, then the player can then interact with them.

Simple Puzzle Solution

A simple version of how a puzzle checks if all the blocks have been placed in the right position, which is achieved by checking if all collision boxes are colliding with a block. Then if the puzzle is solved, the door opens and the player can continue.

More Advanced Puzzle Solution

The advanced version also features doubt and hope blocks. Doubt blocks delete player blocks when overlapping and hope blocks glow after the puzzle is solved and all hope blocks are connected through player blocks.

Printing Station

The printing station has a collision box to check if the player is in range and can simply be placed in the level. On the right the blocks that can be printed can be edited.

Print Station 2D

On the right the available blocks are displayed and can be dragged and dropped into the left box to have them be printed out after pressing the print button.

Print Station UI

The UI is checking for mouse input and handles the drag and drop operations.

Main Menu

A simple main menu that playes the theme of the last stage "Catharsis" but as a piano version which ties the whole game and theme together.

Gameplay Video

Download Game Prototype

Download