Beyond the Veil

Welcome to Beyond the Veil.

Voting

Please vote on my game <3

Theme

This game was written for the GameDev.tv 2022 Game Jam with the theme DEATH IS ONLY THE BEGINNING!

Story

You are Renia, an adventurer from Earth. You one day stumble upon a cave and become trapped by the Deity. He toys with you and makes you open explosive chests promising your freedom afterwards. (All that glistens is not gold).

Upon your escape, you are trapped again. With the same Deity claiming innocence. Find out why you are still trapped and see if you can gain the freedom that you desire.

Gameplay

You will spawn into a first-person controlled escape like room map, with problem-solving, exploring and first-person shooting aspects. (very slight horror but so minor).

There is also 3 endings! See if you can find them all!

Developer Comments

This now beats every other game jam I have ever done in size, complexity and gameplay. It's a follow on story that seemed to match from the first game jam I ever did. It's now my second game in Unreal. I love it! I was trying to develop it on Linux like usual, however, I ran into issues when trying to compile some plugins. (turns out, it was a bad update, nothing to do with the plugins!) I love this game. So many bugs, but I would love to take a step back and see this game continue. Will Renia's journey contains after ending X? :D Sadly I didn't manage to stream any game development this time. Apologies!.

It also uses Nanite and Lumen to look sweet.

What I did well

• Using Unreal 5 for the second time. I love this engine!
• Using MegaScans instead of any of my paid assets. MegaScans look so beautiful.
• The layout, gameplay, and story I just love. I loved inventing my own afterlife!
• I got to do my first "part 2" game. That's fun :D
• Loads more blueprints with better coding. Fewer Blueprint bugs this time
• More voice acting from loads of people
• I did focus on my tasks at the level of importance this time! Story->Level->Gameplay->cutscenes->endings
• I added subtitles! Never done that before. Super easy in Unreal!
• You have multiple endings. How cool is that! Walkthrough coming sometime this week.

What I would do better next time

• If my game is going to have a story, focus on the story first. It changes EVERYTHING! My story changed mid-game, causing a huge redevelopment of some areas.
• Maybe start looking into the C++ side of Unreal?
• Plan slightly smaller games
• Low FPS :( some times the FPS can drop to 20FPS and lower.

New things I've learnt

• Unreal Engine 5. The engine has so many things
• Quixel Megascan is such a powerful tool for non-artists. If you don't have assets, try it out! Its free :D

Known bugs

• The cutscenes can go on for a bit longer and you may not hit the trigger without going back to it
• The gun can sometimes go invisible
• The basic AI gets stuck behind walls lol
• The audio can stack in some aspects making it hard to hear
• The subtitles run off-screen towards the end of the game
• Low FPS in some regions