Homebound: Lost Signals

Development Process

The main goal was to create a first-person prototype in Unreal Engine with interactive triggers, sound effects, and a dynamic health system that tracks the player's well-being. The environment is an abandoned building in the middle of a forest, using post-apocalyptic assets to convey negligence and past catastrophe. I sourced third-party assets from the FAB digital marketplace. The scope was ambitious for the timeframe and budget, but I was determined to push it.

After establishing the primary focus and completing the pre-production document, I started building Level 1 using a downloaded abandoned factory asset pack. I redesigned the asset pack and added a landscape where players could walk up to the building from outside. Once the building's interior was set, I created the landscape with ground, stone, and dirt materials, painted textures, reshaped the terrain to add variation, and included a lake.

The first development stage focused on creating atmosphere through a deserted color scheme (brown-orange tones). I adjusted the atmosphere using post-process volumes, sky atmosphere settings, and directional light color changes. This part required several iterations—nothing looked quite right or realistic enough. I tried adding an HDRI backdrop, but it worsened the lag and didn't achieve the desired effect.

Early on, the simulation ran very slowly with significant lag and "Video Memory exhausted" warnings (100MB-1GB). I resolved this by lowering project scalability from EPIC to MEDIUM (even HIGH caused issues, especially with tree assets). This affected overall asset quality and final lighting, but it was necessary for performance.

The character navigates using WASD and JUMP keys, and interacts with objects using the E key (a red arm-length sphere indicates grabbable objects). Objects trigger on-screen text or disappear, and some play sound effects on click. Inside the building are three interactive triggers, including a Mixamo-animated dying character that displays text. This simulates the backstory and helps players understand the situation (the character mentions "finding them").

I added a second underground cave level to demonstrate level transitions and provide another location. The Mixamo creature was intended to simulate a villain encounter (though fighting mechanics weren't included due to complexity), so there's only an animated character to threaten the player.

During this phase, the project file contained a corrupt asset that nearly destroyed the entire UProject. I managed to locate and remove the problematic line of text from the assets folder. I also added the Clean Project Plugin to delete unused assets, as the folder was growing too large.

In the second stage, I added UI elements to support the player's POV—static images overlaid on screen. I used Canvas Panels to display PNG images finalized in Adobe Illustrator. The design is basic, intended to support the prototype concept rather than represent final UI/UX for the lifebar and inventory.

I expanded the trigger system using Blueprint buttons and pop-up windows (Canvas panels) to simulate inventory and lifebar mechanics. Once this worked well, I added an Introduction Panel with player instructions before the game starts. Time constraints prevented sophisticated implementation, so the mechanics shown are prototype-level only.

This created a challenge: returning from the Cave level back to the Main level. To solve this, I created a third level (duplicating the first) called "Level BACK" with an updated inventory, restored lifebar (no low energy like at the start), and no Introduction panel. The environment remains identical. This final level also includes a perfume collectible and a modified inventory pop-up window.

Sound effects came mostly from Pixabay's free library, plus two AI-generated sources for the soundtrack (ProducerAI and Descript for radio script narration). Most sound effects were customized—cut or sped up—in REAPER software.