The Half Moon Library is a GameJam Game created by Calve Cowdry and Harry Crowe. Our limitations were 12 hours Development Time, Horror Themed and Unreal Engine 5. 

We collectively planned out our idea, knowing the limitations we had for completing this project. We decided to go with something dark, mysterious and horror themed, as this would save us a lot of time when it came to art. We figured a maze, with a simple escape puzzle was a good idea, as this was something we could piece together rather quickly, and then iterate on in stages. 

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As the game went on, we felt the tension of creepy background music just wasn't enough to fully immerse the average player. This is when I decided to implement jump scares if the player so happened to end up down the wrong path. To counteract this, I also included certain voice lines, that were intended to scare the player, but finding them was actually the correct way out of the maze. 

 

Because I was the designated programmer for this project, I decided to utilise Unreal's Blueprinting system. I often encountered bugs that took time away from the project, and found the more I included, the more something elsewhere broke because of it. 

As soon as I got the features I felt necessary in the game all working, I decided to stop including new features and instead worked on refining the ones that were already in. This included fixing some animations, camera positions, the flashlight and fixing sound levels so it was a comfortable experience for the player. 

Overall, I am extremely happy with how The Half Moon Library turned out. As a two-person team and with only a 12 hour time limit, there wasn't a lot more that this project could have been.