About last summer

CONCEPT

About Last Summer is a puzzle and narrative game made for smartphones. We follow a young boy named Noah who recently lost his grandma. With his family, he goes back to her house to pack her belongings. He will stumble upon an odd pyramid which will take him on a touching adventure where he'll meet his ancestors and discovers his family history.

Our mains intentions were :

Learn about your ancestor

Legacy

Narration - Puzzle
Connection

PROJECT

GAMEPLAY

The puzzles and the narration are linked. The story gives hints on how to solve the puzzles, and the later makes you progress in the story.

They are based on a light system. The player's objective is to bring a light ray to an objective. He has access to 3 tools (provided by the pyramid the child discovered):

- A mirror which can reflect and direct light (by rotating it).

- A filter which change the light's colour.

- A teleporter which teleport the light ray from one point to another.

The player can choose the tools in the bottom right of the screen (as seen on the pictures below), and he can place them on the pedestals.

To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key.

To solve the puzzles, the player can explore and observe his environment. He'll find journals, letters, objects, that will give him hints.

For exemple, one of his ancestor was an archeologist. In a notebook, he tells us about his exploration of the tomb of Tuthmosis. He explains that he passed through the entrance guarded by the Sun God, that he used a secret passage to go from the room 6 to the room 8, and that the red blood of the god was painted on the tomb's walls.

As for the puzzles, it's translated by the light ray passing by the 4th room (an engraving shows the placement of the gods, the Sun God is in the bottom room), by the player who has to put the teleportation tool in the Room 6 to the Room 8 (to symbolise the secret passage), and by the light needing to be red when arriving upon the tomb (the blood of the god).

MY ROLE

I had the role of vision owner on the project. I proposed this concept and formed a team with whom I worked for 4 months. I was with the team and all the divisions throuhough all the project.

I also worked on the game design parts of the project. The first puzzles I pitched at the very beginning weren't systemic and we quickly understood that it was too dangerous for a 4 months student project. Thus, there was a big game design re work to find a system that we all liked and could be used to keep a strong link between the narration and the puzzles.

I worked on the narration with Charlotte Niquet (cf Team), to elaborate and write the scenario. She did numerous researches to create and define the profiles of Noah's ancestors. With their profiles and histories, I imagined several puzzles for the game (the base, the hints, the stories they tell, etc).

After that, it's Luc Derain (cf team) who designed them (placing the elements, the difficulty).

I also worked on the level design of the house and of the rooms. The player's moves are designed like a point & click. The game was in 3D, and renderings were then done to make precise shots (cf pics down below). The challenge was to make the player always understand where he came from and where he could go. I worked with one of the game artists (Arthur Nicolas) to make that work.

To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key.

Finally, the last part of my work was to make researches for the UI. It's for this project that I learned how to use Adobe XD. I used it to make researches on the dialogue boxes, the tutorials and the UI's placement.

BILAN

I hold this project dear to my heart because it was the first time I could work on one of my own project with a team. I was happy to be a vision owner on the game and to be able to tell Noah's story.

The game isn't perfect and in retrospect, there are certains things I'd correct, but I am proud of the work we did. I had a good team, both in game design and game art.

This project made me learn a lot of things and made me progress in various fields : game design, level design, narration, puzzle design and UI.

TEAM

GAME DESIGN

Johanna Bradel

Luc Derain

Quentin Milana

Charlotte Niquet

GAME ARTISTS

Leonard Bouilhol

Lucas Ernst

Arthur Nicolas

Tanguy Talbert

PROGRAMMATION

Quentin Milana