This project is an asymmetric top-down cooperative game in which you have to “find the killer” in multiplayer cooperation. The action takes place in a cursed village, where witches are hiding among villagers to kill them. Villagers have to lead them to the stake first if they do not want to be killed by the witches’ deadly spell. 

The concept art is based on funny stylised characters, with deliberately exaggerated or even grotesque proportions

The main idea was to mix the gameplays of Among Us with the board game “The werewolves of Thiercelieux” to get the best of both worlds: the unique gameplay of Werewolves in which roles are distributed to each player and the social side of Among Us. The player is kept in constant interaction with the game even after he has been eliminated, becoming a ghost character who can continue his tasks, observe others but cannot be seen by players who are still alive.

In the game, the goal for the villagers is to find the witches and send them to the stake before they kill too many of them. At the same time, they can also complete tasks in order to gather enough resources to escape the village and prepare for a perilous journey. On the witch side, the goal is to kill all the villagers, by summoning BloodMoon in the cult area. Summoning is done by passing through a number of Summoning Seals, which are only visible to witches. They also have tasks to complete which are in reality false actions, intended above all to confuse and make people believe that they are not witches but villagers.

 

The goal for the entire project team was to expand their knowledge and develop their skills on the Unreal engine, each challenge being different depending on the expertise.

For Rachel, Environment Artist, it was about being more comfortable and gain speed in the execution of everything related to the integration of objects and textures in Unreal, but also to challenge herself at the creative level concerning the visual style that the game would take. Guillaume, programmer in this project, explains: “For me, this game jam was the opportunity to use the Unreal Engine for the first time after several years spent developing on Unity Engine. So I was really excited to start this Game Jam and quite satisfied at the end. Since Unreal's philosophy is quite different from Unity's, it allowed me to put what I've learned so far into perspective. In addition, our project being playable online with many people, I was able to fully appreciate the way Unreal facilitates this kind of development, having been designed for network games from the start. I can't wait for the next game jam to continue exploring the Unreal Engine and I am definitely looking for a real project to work on with this engine. ”For Loïc, technical artist on this project, the game jam gave him the opportunity to explore Unreal, and compare his knowledge of this engine versus Unity which he is extremely familiar with.  “I mainly worked on the cartoon rendering of Concept Art and on the toon shading. It was a real pleasure to rediscover Unreal and upgrade my skills. Finally there are few differences for the Tech Art part between Unity and Unreal. There are even some elements that are more accessible ”he adds.

The conclusion is quite simple! The team is thrilled with what they have all achieved, whether it was the end game project or the knowledge they gained in developing it. The Game Jam’s objective has been met!