Westwood Shadows is a first-person, puzzle-solving game with mild horror element. The game received a Mega Grant funding from Epic Games during its early stages of development. RedSoup Studio contracted us to develop gameplay and AI systems for the game. Additionally, we implemented several tools to accelerate the development process.

Some of these tools and systems include:

• An item dropping system. The system allowed the developers to assign a chance for specific item drops to enemies which directly affects the overall gameplay flow.
• The item toss system. This system allowed the player to toss objects around the game. Tossed items grab the attention of nearby AIs which allows the player to sneak around them.
• A quick time event (QTE) system. AIs are able to grab the player and transition into a QTE requiring the player to take quick actions to get away from enemies.
• We implemented several features in the AIs for this game.
  • Enemies can see, hear and touch the player.
  • We built a custom system that allowed developers to assign custom areas reachable by each AI. This prevented AIs from endlessly chasing the player.
  • We created several different modes for each AI, such as patrol, investigation and retreat. Each mode can be activated either by different environmental factors or by the player’s gameplay.
  • We created four different boss fights along with all their abilities. Each ability was developed in a modular fashion to allow developers to mix up the overall logic and flow of each boss fight.
• All the designed systems were designed to be scalable and easily adjustable by the developers, allowing them to focus on how the game feels.