Afterlight

Afterlight, is a 3D puzzle game that revolves around the story of Aste. A human whose soul has been split into two, due to an amulet her mother gave her before passing away. The goal of the game is to make Aste’s soul whole again by overcoming her grief. Swap between the light and dark versions of her soul to complete puzzles and interact with a pop-up book like world where the background can interact with the foreground. Complete the puzzles before the eclipse or become trapped within Aste’s grief.

Premise

The game takes place in a dark fantasy, steampunk world, where our main character, Aste Myth, will explore and find remnants of a shattered crystal, after finding out that these crystal shards help her stabilize her ability; the power to switch between the two souls they were born with.

Her split spirit represents the internal struggle Aste has between fear and acceptance, where she once was terrified of what she would experience in the spirit world, she must now learn to open her eyes and see the beauty within the balance, she experiences the spirit world as dark and twisted because of her turmoil.

My Role

Afterlight is a 3D puzzle platformer in which narrative plays a central role, influencing both gameplay and the transition between levels. Developed in collaboration with classmates at Full Sail University, this project provided an opportunity to integrate immersive storytelling into interactive game design. As the lead narrative designer, I was responsible for writing all main scripts and character lines, as well as constructing the overarching story and game setting. Beyond narrative work, I contributed to system and level design, assisting in the creation of object outline systems and object movement tracking. Additionally, I played a role in the final asset implementation and level beautification.

Below is an example of a "shimmer system" where we created a particle system that follows object movement, to show the player what their actions are affecting.

You can read the Narrative Design Document here
The game is not currently published, but a playable demo is available to download from google drive on my blog.