Pictured here is the start screen I created for the game, where the player can access the credits, view a list of the characters with additional background information, and start or quit the game. In the background, the player character Vivienne and her companion Chilumen the Chinchillux are pictured watching the Auralite meteorites pass by in the sky overhead.

Several cutscenes separate the gameplay levels as the player progresses through the short game. Each cutscene briefly explains a portion of the story in a click-through sequence that is advanced by clicking the arrow button on the right. Pictured here is a snippet from the opening cutscene that explains the planet upon which the action takes place.

Throughout the game, I include various NPCs (non-playable characters) that instruct the player or that the player interacts with to advance the story. Pictured here is the start of Level 1, where NPC Hegai the guard is introducing himself to the player character before showing her how to use her projectile attacks.

In Level 3, I introduce a new type of Umbra enemy, the bird-like Umbra that can fly. Shown above is an example of the player using the "Yellow Auralite" electricity projectile attack to try to hit and destroy the enemy.

In Levels 1 and 3, the player is accompanied by the player character's companion, Chilumen the Chinchillux Animuki, who is able to instruct the player on tasks to perform on many occasions. This furry creature uses his Green Auralite powers of the wind to fly around and follow the player. Pictured above is the motion of the character following the player and floating around, along with a wind particle effect I created to show that he is flying. Additionally, as the player interacts with the Star Cookie collectibles, Chilumen emits another particle effect to make it appear that he is chewing the cookies that the player has collected.

Pictured above is a snippet of the code written in the Visual Studio editor that allows the NPC Chilumen to follow the player as they move around. I use the principle of moving the GameObject (which the animating Chilumen GameObject is parented to) by a speed by using the step variable. Next, the script checks the Boolean values from the "ViviMove" script, which determine if the player is facing to the right or left. If the player is facing to the right, the NPC will follow an invisible point to the left of the player, and vice versa if the player is facing to the left. This ensures that the NPC is always following behind the player in any direction. The script also checks if the player is to the right or left of the NPC, which flips the NPC sprite to always look towards the player. Similar logic is used to control the enemies that pursue the player and attack (see below).

As shown above, when the player approaches an enemy, a "!" speech bubble appears above each enemy, and they charge towards the player. If the enemy touches the player, the player turns red and loses a chunk of health. The player can defeat the enemies by launching projectile attacks with the Q and E keys. Upon being defeated, the enemies drop a collectible Star Cookie that increases the player score.

Pictured above is a snippet of the script I use to control the Umbra Dog enemies (the same logic is applied to the Umbra birds, as well). When the player passes into an invisible volume situated in front of the enemy, the "!" speech bubble appears and a sound effect plays, letting the player know the enemy is going to attack. There is a second of delay, as per the function "DialogueOff" in line 73, before a Boolean value "alerted" is set to true, which causes the enemy to begin pursuing the player, using similar following logic from the NPC Chilumen scripting. However, only the flying bird Umbra enemy can pursue the player in all directions. The dog Umbra enemy can only pursue the player along the ground and will not jump.

Shown above is an example of the click-through flow of the game dialogue. The text prints to the screen, and the player advances by pressing the arrow button pictured in the lower right portion of the screen. In this instance from Level 2, the player character is talking to the NPC Hegai. The player character's mouth and eyes animate while she is talking. The talking animation stops when the story is advanced to show the next snippet of dialogue.

Pictured above is a snippet of the code written in the Visual Studio editor that controls the dialogue and speaker animation functionality. I utilized many versions of this scripting logic to control all of the click-through dialogue and cutscene sequences (as evidenced by the pieces of code commented out in this example, which is used to end a dialogue sequence and cause the character speaking the dialogue to stop animating). The way the script works is that it first finds the character's animator, which controls its animations (the variable "anim"). The function "ClickChoice()" is used by the button that advances the dialogue. When the button is pressed this function is called, which causes the text and speech bubbles of the speaker to disappear ("SetActive(false)") and the speaker to stop doing the talking animation by setting a Boolean value to false in line 34. Additionally, line 35 causes the player to be able to move again, calling a function in another script. Keeping the player frozen ensures that the player cannot run away and miss the important conversation.