The Last Blue

Overview

The Last Blue is 3rd person puzzle game where you explore a ruined temple and decipher the language of a ruined civilization. You modify magical gryphs written in the ancient language, which can cause objects in the temple move or activate in different ways.

Nominated for best design at Futuregames Awards 2024.

I was one of the programmers helping the many talented designers and artists bring their vision to life as we made the game for Game Project 3 at Futuregames.

  • Written in: Unreal Engine / C++
  • Development period: 7 weeks
  • Team size: 11 people, of which 4 programmers
  • Source repository
  • Itch page

I made the character movement and third person camera. The camera can switch between 3 spring arms with different lengths and allowed angle ranges. It can switch when directly ordered to by some actor (like a walking into a trigger volume or a puzzle being completed). It also switches between the closest and medium distance springarms depending on if there's enough air behind the camera for the medium camera distance or not. The switching is nice and continuous. The camera can also switch to a fixed position in front of the glyphs that you interact with to solve puzzles.


The camera smoothly switches from the medium spring arm to the near one, and then back. This happens automatically as a consequence of level geometry and the player turning the camera with mouse movement.


A showcase of the camera transitioning to a static perspective to allow the player to interact with a glyph.


I also made most of the puzzle objects that the glyphs affect, like the carryable object that can grow and shrink in size (the system for the player carrying things included), the moving platforms, the energy sockets that activate other objects when an object of the right size is put in them, and the lasers. Those are very important, they're lasers.


The small statue is picked up and put in the socket. The subglyph for "large" is learned from the glyph on the big statue and used to resize the socketed statue. The statue's size matching the socket makes it turn on, activating a laser which is part of a larger puzzle.


This page is WIP, so there are no images or expandable code sections yet, and more detailed descriptions of my work haven't been added yet. If the trailer or video clips pique your interest, you can check out the whole game by getting a build from the Itch page to experience it for yourself.