Summary
Type: Videogame / Game Jam
Completed: Released
Acquirable: itch.io
My Role: Solo Project (Outsourced modelling and some audio files)
Time Frame: Within 24 logged hours.
What Is Parasocial?
Parasocial is a recreation of a game I had made in 2017 within 24 hours while at university called Discount Slender. The core concept of the game is you're in the forest being hunted by an AI which you can not defeat but only delay. You need to find it and attack it to stay alive but don't touch it or you'll die.
In 2017 there was no framing, the project was a mish-mash of frame concepts. In Parasocial it's built upon the idea of (social media influencers) streamers having fans that have an affinity for them when the streamer doesn't even know who they are, resulting in the fan stalking the creator.
What I'm Proud Of?
During the short development period of Parasocial, considering I worked on the project by myself, I did a lot. However, the two main things I'm proud of is time-frame and the throwing mechanic.
- Time-Frame: Although this isn't the fastest project I've worked on, it's one where I was able to match the time of its original counterpart and see how far I've come in terms of level design, UI, mechanic design and overall juice. Not only did the reflection feel good but so did the fact that this is the second project in 2 weeks that I had released - The other being Die Head.
- Throwing Mechanic: In Parasocial, the player throws rubbish at the enemy but because the player isn't using a gun, I couldn't just shoot the object at the enemy and Unity Physics is odd for actions such as throwing. So I made a system that ran a parabola towards the end of a RayCast. The movement worked through a lerp and would enable more aspects of the RigidBody at the end of the lerp. However, this resulted in objects being thrown at different distances being thrown at weird heights and speeds. To resolve this I modified the parabola height and the lerp speed by taking into account the end distance of the parabola.
