Developing "The Eternal Queen" for the Game-based News Simulation Project

Introduction:

The Eternal Queen puzzles and strategy-style electronic game with the goal of guiding laser beams (using cubes and triangular mirror objects) to the gate’s key at each level; the laser beam appears as a red line, the key is in the centre of the gate, the laser objects are movable cubes and triangular mirror objects, the player’s objective and score are in the left bottom corner. Levels increase in difficulty and the runtime of each level is shortThe Eternal Queen was created in the context of research investigating the use of games as a means of simulating and presenting news.

Methods:

1. Utilization of Quixel Megascans:

All these textures and objects were taken from a vast library called Quixel Megascans, with high-definition 3D assets and materials. All this realism allowed to make the levels feel more alive and to inflict a greater sense of anxiety.

2. Realistic Materials and Physically Based Rendering (PBR):

The game used Physically Based Rendering to make realistic materials. This type of rendering makes images look more realistic and details and life to the environment, like 'breathing' trees.

3. Structural Challenge Features:

The Skeleton Code is presented as a mean to illustrate how difficult the task was (setting up a palate and limbs as a corpse), and it partly attributes the failure of its predecessors. The challenge is written into the environment, but in an eerie way. All these elements contribute to making the environment much scarier.

4. Dynamic Sound Design:

It had a long epic scene with an initial soundtrack called 'Mirror In Miracle', and it even included a laser sound effect of the beam - its sound getting louder and louder as the player approaches, and then dying away when the player pulls away. These sounds added to the realism.

Challenges and Innovations:

1. Laser-activated Doors and Hidden Buttons:

Laser-triggered doors are now installed; hidden buttons that must be opened by a rolled-up rug or heavy jar continue to send the game spiralling in complexity.

2. Using Blueprints System in Unreal Engine:

It extensively used Unreal Engine's Blueprints system for game mechanics design and programming. This system allowed for a structural design pattern, which meant that the same application was used for architectural, localisation and logic-related tasks, and a visual scripting approach was adapted that required no code development, rather than using code-based systems.

Outcomes and Conclusion:

'The Eternal Queen', a successful initiative based upon its novel use of technological interplay via interactive simulation and real-life reproduction, via Unreal Engine's Blueprints development tool and Quixel Megascans, the digital library for materials on surfaces, demonstrates the proficiency of electronic game design in creating authentic, viable gameplay experience. The simulated imitation of emulating the subject is exemplified through 'The Eternal Queen'. This research project sees new horizons for utilising games in news simulation and presentation via interactive digital simulation in journalism.

Also, this game development is part of my empirical research in the gaming industry and in my research project, called Game-based News Simulation. I also completed an essential course about game design from scratch through Unreal Sensi. My first launch into this field.