Doodles

 Pen and Paper doodle drawing and digital painting.

Game Design Workshop: Recreating the Deep Sea Adventure

So my objective was to test my Blueprint code and UI skills in Unreal Engine 4, by using the Deep Sea Adventure Board Game as the object of study. I choose this game because of its elegant and minimalist mechanics and I assumed it could be done during a two-week vacation back in 2020. It actually took me 228 hours to complete it.

All the art was made by me in an attempt to see if I could replicate the original material and the remaining UI elements were trying to make something that followed the same aesthetics.

Wireframe V1

The following video shows the implemented UI and gameplay end result in Unreal. It can be played from 1 to 6 players on a single PC screen, by playing and then passing their turn.

Unreal Gameplay

While developing this version, I notice multiple usability problems that I tried to solve in a second UI Interaction. The problems were:

• Having too much information on the screen makes it difficult to understand the game rules and the action to play
• Converting the physical game to 3D would beneficiate from simulating the eye movement in a real game, instead of being so quick. More animations like the removal of empty space; the diver consuming oxygen, etc.
• The Play and Pass mechanic would work better on a mobile device. 

If I were to continue to work on these problems I would update the Unreal UI to use the V2 High Fidelity wireframes. Comparing with the first iteration, the player is only able to see the actions for the current that game stage and not all at the same time. This means a lot less info on the screen.

Wireframes V2

Start Game & Change Player Number

After Dive Action (Roll Successful)

Take Treasure

Next Turn (Oxygen Consumption)

Unable to Move & Drop Treasure

End of Round (Lost Treasure)

End of round (Gain Treasure)

End of Game (The Winner)

Score menu

Options Menu

This was fun!

Abyssal 6 Years

Over the last 6 years (at 15 June 2021) I've been working as a Technical Artist at Abyssal. In those years I helped built realistic underwater environments, construct level design for simulated missions, assemble UI and very recently create product wireframes. Most of my work also evolves programming tools using blueprints and a little bit of c++, develop master materials for Offshore rigs with biofouling and create visual effects for realtime using Unreal Engine. All of this to train pilots in the Abyssal Simulator and help them plan and visualize the 3D worksite using the Offshore application.

The journey was incredible and now Abyssal is part of a bigger company, the Ocean Infinity.
Here are some of the highlights of the work that is public and I'm really proud of, more can be found at Abyssal.eu.