The Graveyard Shift

About The Game

The Graveyard Shift is a side-scroller 2D survival game developed in Unreal Engine 4.27. This was the Level 3 year 1 final major project of the games design course at South Gloucestershire & Stroud College (Stroud Campus). Declan Lloyd was assigned as the lead programmer, working on some background environment assets as a side-role. Dylan Hearsum was assigned as the lead level designer, working on the user interface artwork and it's basic programming as a side-role.

We were given 3 themes to choose from; waves, growth and superstition. We chose the theme of waves, designing the project with the goal of making a polished vertical slice of a game, along with a tutorial level, in 12 weeks. This project also loosely fits into the other 2 themes, as the group blended ideas generated from the other themes to make the mechanics and visuals more appealing than the pitched idea.

You play as a gravedigger in a graveyard where the dead are being reanimated. You must travel through the graveyard, fighting waves of ghastly creatures in order to find out why the dead and freaky are walking again!

Each enemy can die in physical combat, but also have a unique death mechanic. For the skeleton, dig a hole and hit them into it. For the possessed armour, lead it into the pools of water located around the map, turning it into a pile of rusted scrap. All enemies have a chance to drop ancient artefacts that serve as temporary power-ups to an individual stat.

The game was originally planned to have a boss at the end of each level, testing and developing the skills learned throughout the game. We ended up cutting the boss mechanic due to the pressure on the artists.

 

Credits

© South Gloucestershire & Stroud College

Person	Role(s)
Declan Lloyd	Lead Programmer, Environment Artist
Dylan Hearsum	Lead Level Designer, UI Artist
Jared Tapping	Lead Artist
Scarlet Rose	Lead Audio Engineer

 

Controls

Input(s)	Action
A,D Arrow Keys	Movement
W Space Bar	Jump
Left Mouse Button	Attack
Right Mouse Button	Attempt to dig a hole

 

How To Play

The game begins in an optional tutorial. This teaches you all of the controls, as well as how every core mechanic works.

You have to stave off numerous waves of enemies combat, in order to survive long enough to escape. Skeletons can be knocked out, but need to be hit into a hole to rebury them for good. These holes don't last for long though! The possessed armour can be lead into the pools of water dotted around to cause it to rust.

These enemies can occasionally drop special artefacts that bestow powers to you. The powers given vary between artefacts, but will give positive boosts to aid your survival. Be warned, these boosts are only temporary!