Life of a Fallen Leaf

Gameography

Genre: Horror, Tone: Solemn, frightening,
Description: As day turns to night, a farmer's relationship with his daughter and protégé decays like autumn foliage.

Project

My Roles

  • Writer: Created the characters, wrote the story and dialogue, game design document, and all publishing copy including logline and synopsis.
  • Producer: Managed a team of five (+ programmer, 3D artist, illustrator, composer-sound designer)
  • UI Designer: Designed and programmed the splash screen and main menu.
  • QA Tester: Performed a QA test at the beta stage, and made code / engine corrections to eliminate bugs and improve gameflow.

Skills Utilized

  • Narrative Writing (Microsoft Word)
  • Project Management (Trello)
  • Team Collaboration and Management (Discord)
  • In-engine Development (Godot Engine)
  • Programming (GDScript)
  • UI / UX (Figma)
  • Graphic Design (Adobe Photoshop)

A retired army vet languishes his days on a farm, but the ghost of his past forgets not the horrors he took part in.

SYNOPSIS

In the midst of the autumn season, it’s only two weeks before Halloween 2023. A former army officer has been settled on a farm outside of Eau Claire, Wisconsin for some time. Taking an imminent trip to nearby Minneapolis to see his daughter and grandchildren, Errol Sapher must collect homegrown pumpkins from the farmland.

To fend off the potential boredom of the harvest, the former lieutenant-colonel calls his protégé, who has not been settling into the peaceful afterlife the same way Errol has. He is reminded of the abuses of war that the two of them witnessed, and if the veil of honesty is transparent enough, were contributors to.

As day becomes night and relationships begin to rot the same way an overmatured pumpkin does, the grandfather needs to confront the demon of his past, as well as the one within himself.

This title was developed for the 62nd edition of the Godot Wild Jam.

Gallery

Main menu: I set and designed the visual tone of the game's UI, and integrated font, icons, and functionality to start the game, access the settings menu, adjust the volume, see the credits and controls, and exit the game. A considerable effort goes into designing each screen of my menus. This particular one required acquiring graphics, graphic design modifications in Adobe Photoshop, and custom animations for each element in Godot. Art production: Along with producing the other departments of the team, I collaborated with our concept artist and 3D artist, providing references and direction. The finalized villain concept for our horror game. I subsequently began writing the story. The 2500-word high-quality script—written in one day to meet the demands of the tight nine-day deadline. This particular narrative is told through phone calls, integrated, captioned, and voiced by our hyper-talented programmer. Outside of the base cabin, the game takes place in an open-world environment. The escalating dramatic tension correlates with the decay of the main character's psyche as the game progresses. Finally, he is confronted by the villain: the "Shabahan of Abu Ghraib". I created and managed tasks on Trello for the team, ensuring that progress was visual for motivation, and all information discussed in our Discord server was centralized.

UI Design

Splash Screen and Main Menu

Script

Life of a Fallen Leaf: Script (PDF Download)

Game Design Document

Life of a Fallen Leaf: GDD (PDF Download)