I Love My Dad: Coffee Cafe

2023

Team Size: 6

Role: Content Designer

Software: Unreal Engine 5

Genre: 3D First-Person Atmospheric Horror

Development Time: 2 Weeks

In I Love My Dad: Coffee Cafe, The player finds themselves trapped in a repeating coffee shop with no hope of escape. As they walk through the loops, they will see the environment around them devolve into disrepair, and the threat of unknown monsters ahead grows as they continue their journey. The gameplay is very stripped back and slow, feeling mostly like a walking simulator with some added parts.

This game was made in a very short period of time since it was from a game jam which gave me the opportunity to get more experience working under tight deadlines and using creative thinking. The jam had the theme of coffee and spooky so after some brainstorming we decided on a looping coffee shop horror game. While working on this game I had the chance to program and implement multiple systems like the notes that can be picked up and the lockers that the player can hide in. I had a lot of fun with this game building the layout of the loops and coming up with the flow of the game which gave me the chance to learn to program all the changes that happen around the player. The encounter that I spent the most time on was one that happens when the player walks into a large hallway and the coffee shop behind them disappears and turns into more hallway. this was a great learning moment for me as I got to script the monster appearing and chasing the player on a spline to the end of the hallway. As this game was not meant to have a death state I made it so that when the monster got close there was an indicator for the player and if they caught the player they would just be spawned at the start of the next loop.

Learned a lot more about blueprint programming
Gained more experience working with strict deadlines
Learned about making content using minimal systems that still feels engaging

Luminescent: Welcome