Crescendo is the accumulation of my final year studying at Abertay University, Dundee. It is a walk-through experience which tells the story of an elderly woman going through late stage Alzheimer's Disease trying to remember the face of her husband. The player starts out in a grey and dreary room and must activate certain items which trigger old memories from the old woman's past, which each, in turn, slwly clears up the living room back to its cluttered colourful state.

The game concept is based on living at home with my Grandparents, where my Grandma is going through late-stage Alzheimer's herself. I wanted to bring that sense of confusion to the table, and at the same time the awe of when a powerful memory returns. When choosing the art style for Crescendo, I had contemplated keeping it more realistic to properly learn setting up materials in Unreal, but I decided to keep developing the painted style I'd begun to enjoy the year previous.

All assets used have diffuse, specular, and Gloss maps.

Before the topic Alzheimer's Disease came into the mix, the research around the project was 'Looking at Games with Minimal Interaction, and the Illusion of More', looking for ways to make low interaction games and experiences such as Dear Esther or Gone home have more player input without sacrificing the simplistic nature.

The initial reception of Crescendo at the Abertay Degree Show was extremely positive, drawing in all ages from children to the elderly, some of which who were more than happy to share their own experiences with the Disease. I plan to continue development of Crescendo through and after summer as a personal project, switching from UDK to UE4, and starting from close to scratch. I am very happy with how this turned out in the end, and look forward to its future completion.