My Cryptid Companion - Team Cryptech

GENRE: Pet Simulator

ROLE: Designer

ENGINE: Unreal Engine 5

YEAR: 2025

CORE CONTRIBUTIONS:
Game direction and technical design:

I've grouped these together for this project, as these two roles were very intertwined here. Our team ending up not working from many GDDs, instead preferring to prototype features directly in-engine to assess how they would work.
My work ended up being primarily on prototyping and implementing mechanics for traversing the various rooms, making interactable objects, implementing the camera systems (which included both a freecam and a pet-focused camera), the pet's general AI and behaviour systems, and much more.

Narrative design:
I did not contribute any of the writing on this project, as we had a dedicated writer on the team. Instead, I helped implement the written materials into the gameplay. An example of this is how we faced troubles when it was clear that the original 7 day narrative was too long,  so I ended up condensing the narrative originally paced for 7 in-game days into just 5, without losing any of the written content. I also ended up creating and implementing the game's ending, as we unfortunately lacked time to end it on a grander note. I chose to end it with something mysterious and open-ended, in-line with the atmosphere built up across all the in-game logs and journal entries.

Sound design:
Without a dedicated audio expert, I handled audio due to my experience with Unreal Engine. Most of it is fairly simple, but my favourite element is the mothman's vocalisations. I recorded these by using a Commodore64 SID chip emulator, giving him a very distinctive character.

SUPPLEMENTAL CONTRIBUTIONS:
- UI design (map UI, main menu, settings menu)
- In-world UI rendering (computer screen UI and main menu)

- Additional art assets and textures

- Post-processing
- Project pitching

This was the group project I worked on for my second year of university, serving as a designer. We were faced with the challenge of making a pet simulator that would work within a short-form format. It was a very strange project to design for, and we definitely had to compromise due to time constraints, but I think our final plan was well-scoped! A lot of content was left on the cutting room floor, and I do still feel guilty about leaving so much of the artists' hard work behind, but I'm proud of what we did manage to deliver.
 

As the designer, this project helped me develop my skills in essentially liaising between artists and programmers while also balancing my own workload, which was extremely important for developing my skills in working with a full development team.

We ultimately produced one interactive cryptid pet with an array of behaviours and ways to interact, and one in-game week worth of content with an optional endless mode. 

My last contribution to the project was the "Expo Edition" of the game, which is the version you will see when downloading the game from itch.io. This was created for the Falmouth Games Academy Expo 2025.
This was mainly my work, created after the project deadline, originally starting as an alternative version of the game that had a scoreboard on the main menu (to attract visitors to the game's booth), but ending up as an enhanced edition of the game, fixing many bugs, adding a new menu screen, and making many balance changes, such as compacting the game's original 7 days into just 5 to make a faster and more compelling gameplay experience.