Luma
A cutesy isometric horror game set in a shadowy cemetery full of dark spirits
The Project
Luma is a game prototype made in Unity during my first semester at UCF’s Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA) that we put onto itch.io in September 2020. I worked alongside Zachary Hanitz (Project Management), Angelo Pagluica (Programmer), Daniela Diaz-Rivera (3D Artist), and Lori Carranza (3D Artist). Together we created Luma over the course of two weeks. In it players explore a gloomy cemetery full of restless dark spirits that will chase our titular protagonist should they wander to close. I was a technical designer on the project, flexing into a lot of different areas to help cover the team.
Conception
Luma was created early into our time at FIEA, most of us not having had a lot of opportunity to get to know each other, let alone had a concept for what we wanted to work on. As this was during Covid-19, our first step was to get on a call and just talk. We spent some time discussing what we could do, what we wanted to do, and also just who we were. A lot of ideas were thrown out eventually starting with an exploration focused tower defense game in which the player uncovers lost towers in a dark ruin and restores them to fight off evil spirits. We moved away from this idea a bit, primarily dropping the tower defense layer, a direction I pushed for to help limit our scope. Personally with the time of this prototype we wouldn’t be able to do more than make it into a timer mechanic, removing the player choice around where towers are placed. Since we couldn’t service that system the team agreed it was best to focus on our efforts on making a better, albeit simpler experience. Luma allowed me to practice working and brainstorming with people who I didn’t know very well and how to properly scope for a tight deadline.
Atmosphere
What makes Luma work, is its presentation. Lori and Daniella worked wonders with the art, using a mix of 2D and 3D to create a whimsical but dark effect. I worked alongside Angelo to integrate our artist’s assets and create an appropriately darkly lit level with some whimsical visual effects. I handled the majority of the environment layout, as our team lacked a level designer, and also on the audio, pulling sounds from freesound.org and working on them in Adobe Audition. Working together to combine the art assets, particle effects, lighting, and audio with this team showed me the power that these elements have when they get added together.
Enemies
While Angelo handled the bulk of programming our gameplay mechanics one area I did work on was using Unity’s navmeshes to create our enemies. While they did not end up terribly complex this was my first time using this tool in Unity, having only previously used them in Unreal 4. It was interesting being able to compare and contrast the two engines in this area, seeing where they differed and what knowledge transferred. From a design perspective on the enemies one thing I wanted to be sure of was their relationship to our protagonist and how that was expressed mechanically. They are deadly to Luma, and will chase her relentlessly and quickly. Luma can’t kill them, that would take the horror out of the game, she can only stun them.
