Secret Santa Game
My Secret Santa Game was a project I created in December 2024 as a gift for my friend for our yearly Secret Santa exchange.
Although the tone of the game is lighthearted, my intention was to use this as an opportunity to experiment with liminal environments and create areas that cause the player to feel out of place.
The game focuses on my friend as the main character who goes through an adventure along with our other friends who voiced their characters in real-time as we watched along.
The goal of this project was not to create a replayable game, but to create a memorable piece of work that positively impacted those involved.
The game will not been distributed anywhere, but we have uploaded a video of our experience for others to watch.
Release Date: 12/26/24
Solo Developer
Development
Each year, me and my best friends do a Secret Santa exchange where you are given a random friend within the group to give a gift to. This year, I decided that I wanted to create an interactive game that everyone could participate in where the friend I was given would be the main character.
I began development of this project in early December, only a few days after my person was picked. Since I had less than a month to finish the project, I decided that Unreal Engine would be the easiest engine to work with as it is the main engine I use for game development and I already had several templates I created and could work with.
Since I was working with such little time, I also decided that I would not be creating any new assets and would only stick to assets that I had already created or found online. Many of these assets are also being used in my Untitled Introspective Project, and as such, they all share a similar liminal aesthetic which prompted me to focus on that aesthetic for this project.
Initially, I wanted my friends to all record voice lines for their characters in-game and they would be played out as their characters talked. I realized it would be a lot more fun and interactive if they could voice their characters in real-time, this also helped with the short deadline I was given.
The final result is a product that I was very content with, and a game that me and my friends will remember for a long time.