Grimwood Manor

Watch the trailer here:

About

Grimwood Manor is a 3D First Person Horror Game developed by Alexander Philippopoulos with Unreal Engine 5. You find a mysterious rumor on the Internet of an old abandoned manor which contains 6 coins. Each of the coins are worth millions of dollars. Taking all the coins will set you for life. But beware, a monster lurks in the depths of the manor. Will you take on the challenge to collect all 6 coins and escape? Will you make it out alive, or will you join the list of those who never made it back?

How To Play

Your objective in the game is simple. Collect all 6 coins, and then escape the same way you came in. The coins are scattered around the building and have a distinct glow. Be careful however, as a monster roams freely. Use hiding spots, such as drawers, chairs, and beds to avoid being detected. You can toggle your flashlight with the F key, and interact with hiding spots and coins with the E key. Once the monster catches you, you lose. The monster spawns at random locations, but the coins are in fixed locations.

Tips

Here are some tips to help you win:

1. Remember the locations of the coins

2. Remember the locations of the hiding spots

3. Check every direction before walking through the corridors

4. Keep retying and you will win eventually

Assets

All the assets in the game do not belong to me. Here's a list of the assets I have used:

https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/abandoned-manor

https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/imprisoned-vampire/review...

https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/treasure-props

Programming

All the programming in the game was done by me. I only used Blueprint code for this game. I made an interface used for hiding in the hiding spots and collecting the coins.

To hide in the hiding spots, I made blueprints which had set positions for the player when they hide. When hidden, I made the player camera pitch and yaw a fixed range to prevent the camera from glitching out.

When creating the AI for the monster, I used a behavior tree to have the AI perform certain tasks in sequences. I also used a blackboard to store a boolean variable that determines which sequence should be executed. The sequences were RoamAround and ChasePlayer. The RoamAround task makes the AI move at a random point at a certain radius. The ChasePlayer task makes the AI run towards the players location, and then attack the player when in range. The variable stored in the blackboard was SeeingPlayer, and that variable becomes true when the player is within the PawnSensing component of the AI. To animate the AI's movement, I used a BlendSpace1D to switch between animations based on a float variable representing the AI's speed. When the AI is not moving, idle animation plays. When the AI moves at 2 m/s, walk animation plays. When the AI moves at 4 m/s, run animation plays. The AI's attack animation plays when it gets in range of the player.

Design

The Levels Design was not entirely done by me. About half of the level was already pre-made by the developer of the abandoned manor asset pack. However, I did design the other half. I dragged and dropped assets into the level and used multi-angled viewports to make sure the assets clicked well and were not overlapping. I thought of going for a more chaotic look for some of the rooms to imply the monster trashed the place. I modified the fog and lighting to make it more dark and more clear for the player to see, while still having some fog to show the horror of an old abandoned building.

Designing the games UI was not complex, as only the amount of coins were needed to be shown. I tried to make the intro to the game look scary by adding some deep sounds to intensify the scene. I used a font to make the menu text fit in with the horror theme. I used some animations in the UI to make text fade in, giving it a more ominous effect.

Conclusion

Hope you all enjoy! This is my first ever horror game, so please feel free to leave me your feedback in the comments :)