GUIDING LIGHT: DIALOGUE SYSTEM

REEL BREAKDOWN

Proximity Audio

To ensure players with low-vision could navigate our top-down design, my team needed to create a system where players could:

  • Tell they are colliding with walls

  • Understand where they are based on landmarks

We opted to use different trigger box interactions to create this blind-accessible experience.

My Contribution:

  • I set up the custom object channels and blueprints that play certain sound effects when specific trigger boxes overlap

  • I refactored the first draft of Unreal Blueprints for wall collision detection

  • I replaced the sound clips for the collision triggers based on feedback from our primary blind tester

Demo Reel

Compass

A compass feature was a priority request from our blind-accessibility tester for a top-down-styled game. We needed to ensure that every player felt they were aware of where they generally were on each map, including which general directions they'd headed.

My Solution:

  • An octagon model made of 8 slices and a center piece grouped together

  • Each piece was assigned a trigger box with a TTS sound clip of each compass direction; the center piece’s sound clip played “Player Start”

  • These pieces could be scaled differently to uniquely cover each level

  • We were able to avoid requiring internet connection to play and too many API calls for our budget

Pictured: Compass model slices stretched to generally fit a level
(click to expand image)

Dialogue & Environment Triggers

Pictured: different trigger volumes combined with object channels create blind-accessible navigation
(click to expand image)

Pictured: Compass model with 8 slices and center section that play a sound clip upon overlap
(click to expand image)

As a narrative-focused game, Guiding Light allows the player to discover lore through exploring the environment. I was in charge of creating the dialogue system, and I took on the task of helping our writers implement discoverable assets with flavor text expanding on the game’s story

My Solution:

Using the previously mentioned custom object channels, I set up a trigger box on the main character’s Blueprint that:

  • Played a looping sound effect, alerting the player that something can be interacted with in their vicinity

  • If the player presses the spacebar, the dialogue system will activate a text box and accompanying TTS

Pictured: Custom object channels I created to fire specific TTS sound clips
(click to expand image)

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