Camp Pacht
Camp Pacht title screen
Camp Pacht title screen
Project Type: Senior Project
Date: Spring 2020
My Role: Lead Programmer
Genre: First-person puzzle
Download: https://katieohlson.itch.io/camp-pacht
Full Playthrough
More Details
Camp Pacht is a first-person puzzle game inspired by games like Myst and Firewatch. The player explores an atmospheric low-poly campsite and solves puzzles to unlock and explore other areas. The game is designed around the use of perspective-shifting, which allows the player to shrink down to enter different areas to access different items and puzzles.
We originally wanted to make this game in VR, but we were sent home mid-semester due to COVID-19 and so we lost access to the equipment and space we had at CWRU. This meant that we had to redesign or cut a lot of puzzles and add new ones so that the game would work well enough with a traditional mouse and keyboard control scheme.
Some of My Features
Player Controller/Object Interaction:
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The player can interact with objects they are looking at.
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Interactables can either trigger something when clicked on (e.g. a button) or can be picked up by the player.
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Held objects can be dropped at any time or placed in specified placement volumes if the player is looking at one (e.g. putting the gems in the totem pole).
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The player enters "Focus Mode" when clicking on some puzzle objects. This locks the camera to a fixed position centered on the object, disabled the player controller, and unlocks the cursor so the player can freely point and click (e.g. the Game Toy or pipes puzzle in the tree).
Game Toy:
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There's a hidden area underneath the level with a functioning 2D platformer. A fixed camera projects it onto the Game Toy screen.
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This was a really fun way to work on something totally different from every other part of the game. I made all the sprites and sound effects too.
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Originally, this was playable in VR by physically pressing the buttons on the console with your hands.
Potions:
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Unlike other holdable objects, potions add force to themselves when dropped so they get thrown.
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Then they shatter on impact and check for objects within a set range that they can affect.
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Fire, acid, and explosive potions just trigger particle effects and then destroy hit vulnerable objects.
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Ice potions spawn an iceberg object if they collided with water.
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Plant potions trigger a coroutine to enable a series of leaf platforms if they collided with a plant sprout.