The Orphanage (Unity & C#)
The Orphanage is a 3D first-person horror puzzle game set on a snowy night. The player's car is unable to move forward due to the blizzard, and is forced to find a shelter nearby, eventually arriving at a seemingly ordinary orphanage. The director of the orphanage warmly welcomes the player, but as a scream pierces the night sky, the player realizes that the orphanage hides a terrible secret. Through continuous exploration and decryption, the player discovers the connection between the orphanage and a series of children's disappearances, and even reveals the truth about their illegal experiments on children. The ultimate goal of the player is to solve the puzzle, enter the basement, find a way to escape from the orphanage, and report it all to the authorities.
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Below is a small comic I made for the background story of this game, introducing why the protagonist came to this orphanage.
Gameplay​​
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In the game, players need to collect items (such as keys, diaries, newspapers, etc.) to obtain decryption clues, and avoid or kill patrolling NPCs while exploring the orphanage. The game combines puzzle solving and action elements, and players need to solve various puzzles to find clues and tools to the next area. The puzzle design ranges from simple password input to more complex environmental decryption, such as adjusting the direction of a torch or stepping on the right color brick according to the prompt.​
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Puzzle Design
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The puzzles in the game vary from basic tasks such as finding keys or passwords to unlock doors to more complex tasks such as finding specific items in the scene to trigger hidden mechanisms. For example, before entering the basement, players need to find five books and insert them into the bookshelf in a specific order to open the passage to the underground. In the basement, players need to adjust the direction of torches according to clues in the scene to unlock new areas, or step on the right color bricks to pass through certain areas safely.
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Ending​
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The ending of the game is that the player, through decryption and exploration, finally faces the director of the orphanage, reveals all the secrets and successfully escapes from the orphanage. Finally, the player reports the illegal behavior of the orphanage to the relevant departments, ending this thrilling adventure.​​
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Learning during development
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While developing The Orphanage, I learned many key skills about game design and development. First, how to create an atmospheric 3D game using the Unity engine and the C# programming language, especially in terms of lighting and sound effects, and how to use these elements to enhance the horror of the game. In addition, I learned how to design challenging puzzles while ensuring that these puzzles are solvable by the player. All of this not only improved my technical ability, but also made me pay more attention to the player experience and the narrative depth of the game during the creative process.