THE DINGLE MYSTERY

Game was created for Dingle animation festival and won best game award 2025. 

Trailer for the game was selected for Best Game Trailer and was only amateur trailer shown in Dingle, next to professional trailers. It was also shown during talk by Sylvain Doreau from 2K games next to professional trailers. 

The Dingle Mystery is an FPP detective game - animation student explores ghostly Dingle, solving environmental puzzles to build a trap and catch Phiast the monster who has scared residents away. 

I made pitch for the game, it was chosen to be one of two games made in BCFE, I used some help from my classmates to make it (specified in production document). My role was writing, producing, environmental design, level design, texturing, gameplay design, implementing code from Horror engine, UI, menus, music, cinematics, trailer, artistic direction, monster modelling texturing and Ai and puzzles. Game is about 40 min long but may take more time for less experienced gamer. 

Main inspiration was light-hearted funny style of Scooby Doo cartoons, horror vibes of Resident Evil and silly alien stories. 

It was my first game ever and first bigger project in UE 5 so production process involved extremely steep learning curve. Main learning points: 

• Managing a team of people I didn't know 
• Planning of production 
• Managing project 
• Managing assets in UE 5 
• Game optimalization (from light management, asset optimalization, code optimalization, file size management) 
• Level design (initial map was too big – had to design map which be a better more concise experience for the player, had to redevelop landscape couple of times, redo landscape material many times, learn about splines, making interiors, remaking interiors many times until I am happy with the result, adding props) 
• Art direction (make stylistically coherent textures, redo textures, learn about material management) 
• Learn about behaviour trees and AI 
• Learn how to add animations to characters, animate objects 
• Packaging project and debugging 
• Making UI assets, widgets, interactive menu 
• Coding (in early prototypes I wrote all the gameplay blueprints using tutorials – game functionalities like adding items, picking up objects etc. In later development I decided to change into Horror Engine and use already made code as that meant much greater coherence and much more functionalities for my game, that allowed me to focus on making more engaging puzzles and environment) 
• Taking player feedback and reiterating gameplay