Gameplay Systems
Vengeance Incarnate is a game about revenge and its consequences. The player returns to the world of living as an animal, to get even with those who hurt them. The choices the player makes will affect how their story will end, and a wide range of mechanics add to the fun part of the experience.
Main Components
Narrative
Reincarnation mechanic
Choices & Consequences
Quick-time Events
Exploration
Puzzle
Core Gameplay
Dialogue progression through clicking
The first mechanism the player will be exposed to, and the most basic one, will be clicking through the short, initial narrative. It will serve as an introduction to the current situation and thoughts of the player.
Viewing memories
It will further introduce the player to who they are playing as, and it will present other characters in the game. The player will be able to choose which memory they would like to see, or if they want to watch them at all.
Collecting and examining items
The items will serve as collectibles that will further introduce the player into the game world and narrative. Upon more diligent examination of the items, the player might get to know useful for the gameplay facts.
Making choices
The choices that the player makes will affect how their story will end. The endings will reflect whether the player’s gameplay was more directed towards getting revenge or trying to make peace with their past.
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Quick-time Events
While exploring, the player will stumble upon space rifts. Upon interacting with them, a quick-time event will appear. Successful completion of quick-time events will result in unlocking new memories of the player. Various difficulty levels of challenges allow for gradual skill mastery.
Quick-time Events Design
Quick-time events are designed on 4 different levels of difficulty. Additional hidden mechanism enabling faster skill learning is organising quick-time events into words or sentences. The sentences function as descriptions for memories which they unlock and they add a fuller context for the game's narrative.
Map Discovery
Each playthrough begins with an entirely covered map. As the player explores the surroundings, the map's parts get gradually uncovered. Interactable objects and characters are available to see on the map once discovered. The player position is marked with a red triangle pointing towards direction they are facing.
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Characters from the story will react to the player’s actions in their animal form. Depending on the player’s choices, at some point the characters might realise the animal is the player, and it might unlock new scenes or endings.
The game ensures replayability through the possibility of exploring the endings through making different choices.
Unreal Prototype
In the beginning of the project I attempted at creating a dialogue system in Unreal. As I was a beginner at coding in this engine, I used the help of YouTube tutorials by Lisowi. Due to time constraints of the project, I had to eventually scope down to creating in 2D.
