User-Interface and Polish – Devlog

Hi, this is the fifth devlog for my game “Escape from the Mansion”, covering the fifth checkpoint which is about designing user-interface elements in the game, as well as overall polish of the game. For this checkpoint I have implemented a title screen, game over and victory interfaces, as well as two new levels!  

For the title, I made a basic title/main menu screen, with a play button that leads to the first level, a placeholder settings button that does not do anything at the moment, and a quit button to exit the game. For the title screen background, I used an image generated by ChatGPT, with the prompt being “can you make me an animated style picture that's going to be a background image, of a haunted/eerie feeling mansion”. I also added a sort of title music to be played while in the main menu screen, the music sourced from pixabay.com, “Eerie” by music_for_video, which portrays an eerie and creepy vibe to the game. The font used for the title screen, as well as any text in the game, is Monoton-Regular, taken from Google Fonts. The title screen is pictured below:

For the game over scene, I added a separate collider to my player to trigger the collision with the enemies, this was done to prevent the game over screen to be triggered when the flashlight collided with them. I used Unity’s UI system to make a UI screen that would be triggered when the player’s body collided with the enemy, as well as a button to return to the main menu. The game over screen as well as it being triggered is pictured in a GIF and image below:

I’ve also made two whole new levels! The level layouts pictured below:

For level 2, I’ve decided to go with a “Bat” as the enemy, sprite and animations sourced from the Bat Sprite Pack by Elthen’s Pixel Art Shop on itch.io. The animated bat chasing the player pictured in a GIF below:

For level 3, and the current final level, I decided to use two “Skeletons” as the enemies as well as a sort of difficulty spike, the sprite and animations sourced from the Monster Pack 40 by Admurin on itch.io. The animated Skeleton pictured in a GIF below:

I’ve also added transitions to the next scene through the door, and the last door which leads to a victory screen, which is pictured below.

The transitions pictured in a GIF below:

I added footstep audio to the player, which only plays when the player is moving, the audio was sourced from pixabay.com, the “Footsteps in a hallway” audio clip by freesound_community, which gives off the footsteps being in a hallway and echo-type feeling. I’ve also added background music to all levels, to set the horror and creepy unsettling tone I’m going for with this game. The audio used for that is “Horror Background Atmosphere #11” by Universefield on pixabay.com.  

The feedback I received was the title and the audio fit the spooky and creepy vibe of the game. There were also praise on the animation of the character and the enemies, which have been fixed as per the concerns raised in earlier devlogs. However, feedback was received that players may like there to be animations for up and down movement as well, and unrestricted flashlight rotation per that movement. There were also comments on the collider bugging out near the tilemap walls, which is an issue that may be fixed in the future.  

As mentioned earlier, the player animation is now changed to be smoother and more fluid, done by changing the animation style to only be based on the “Walking” Boolean parameter, instead of changing based on x-axis or y-axis speed/movement. The improved player animation pictured below in a GIF:

There is a feedback form for the game and it would be fantastic if anyone could try and send any feedback. Any and all feedback is appreciated!

Feedback form: https://taifaa.itch.io/escape-from-the-counts-mansion/devlog/950622/game-feedback

References:

Font used in the game, “Monton-Regular” on Google Fonts designed by Vernon Adams: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Monoton?categoryFilters=Feeling:%2FExpressive%2FExcited

Sprites and Animations:

Bat Sprite Pack by Elthen’s Pixel Art Shop: https://elthen.itch.io/bat-sprite-pack

Skeleton sourced from Monster Pack 40 by Admurin: https://admurin.itch.io/monster-pack-40

Audio clips used all sourced from pixabay.com:

Eerie by music_for_video: https://pixabay.com/music/modern-classical-eerie-21716/

Horror Background Atmosphere #11 by Universefield: https://pixabay.com/music/mystery-horror-background-atmosphere-11-240870/

Footsteps in a hallway: https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/footsteps-in-a-hallway-47842/