PARTYPALS
Unreal Engine Social Deduction Game
Date: 12/14/24 - 1/10/2025
PartyPals is a social deduction game centered around cooperation and communication.
In this game, a Home Owner organizes events at a party and communicates with the PartyPals to complete tasks, but they cannot set them up directly. The Home Owner is armed to deal with PartyPosers, players secretly sabotaging the party. The PartyPosers goal is to sabotage the party and make the Home Owner lose their sanity.
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I was one of the main developers working on this game. From that, one of my main focuses has been the Level Design which I am very proud of.
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I began by doing background research on the game genre to gain a deeper understanding of its core loop and moment-to-moment gameplay.
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Planning the outcome for the traitor once they’re discovered is crucial. In this scenario, the responsibility falls on the Home Owner to eliminate the traitor.
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This shifts the gameplay into a cat-and-mouse dynamic, where the traitor must flee and avoid capture. Several key elements could be incorporated to enhance this experience.
Incorporating both indoor and outdoor sections into the level would create diverse opportunities for the traitor to lurk and hide.
With this information, I started by drawing inspiration from the real world. I explored various houses from my hometown and found one that felt like the perfect fit for the level design.
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A house this size was perfect for if we’d need to reduce size for gameplay balancing.
I began sketching the layout of the house, aiming to include a basement and a second floor. The real-life house I used as inspiration featured a very open first floor, but I added walls to breakup visibility, providing the traitors with more opportunities for sabotage.
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Once the layout was finalized in sketches, I moved into the engine and started the Blockout phase.
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Using Unreal Engine's cube grid tool, I quickly blocked out the house layout, creating three modular sections and easily adjusting rooms. The focus was on setting up doorways, staircases, and sightlines to ensure a balanced player experience.
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Sketch of sightlines making sure they're longer than the second floor.
Using the Cube Grid block-out as a template, I shaped the level with modular walls and floors, keeping unique geometry minimal at first. I then added distinct areas like the stairwell and outdoor decks. To encourage players to go outside, I designed the deck to wrap around the house, offering multiple routes for easier navigation.
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This reinforced an important design choice: not complicating objectives. By keeping tasks clear and straightforward, players can focus on the social aspects that make this genre so engaging. The same concept can be applied to the Level Design.
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Post Mortem
​This has been a unique genre that has improved my overall skills working with various level styles. I was also able to utilize previous experience with open zone levels to enhance the explorative principle I sought to include. As I continue to develop this game further, I hope to improve the level and update this site as progress is made!