A MURDER HAS OCCURRED AT THE MAXIMILLIAN MANSION!

As the local detective, the player investigates the murder at the mansion in a point-and-click puzzle game. Players investigate the mansion for clues and interrogate suspects to uncover the truth behind the mansion owner’s death.

The game can be found and downloaded at: https://uowmgames.itch.io/facade-murder-at-the-masquerade

MY ROLE ON THE PROJECT

Façade: Murder At The Masquerade was made as my second major project at UOWMKDU. It was my first foray into designing a game for mobile. I served a designer for my team, JustBread and the game won the SIGG Silver Medal Winner (Undergraduate) award in 2021.

For this game, I worked on:

- Level design for some of the rooms around the mansion.

- Designing the puzzle in each of those rooms.

- Designing the overall gameplay mechanics and gameplay flow.

- Writing dialogue and the journal entries.

- Assisted in writing the overarching narrative of the game.

Design Pillars

INVESTIGATION

The primary gameplay revolves around investigation. Solving puzzles to look for clues, exploring the mansion, and interrogating suspects are the main areas where this applies.

OBSERVATION

Players should always be observant of everything around them. From the objects in the world, to the parts of the puzzle, even down to the way characters are speaking and what they say, in order to solve the mystery effectively

More Info

POST-MORTEM

What worked?

The setting and atmosphere felt interesting and captivating, as a murder mystery is something many players were familiar with
The characters were unique and well-fleshed out, and resonated well with players
The environment was very detailed and immersive
The mystery got players curious and thinking to try and put everything together

What could have been improved?

The puzzles. As the game was on mobile, players had difficulty with controls, and some of the puzzles weren’t very clear in how to solve them, and so players often got stuck
Scope management. We overscoped significantly and it ate into our other university subjects, which led to a lot of late nights put into making a lot of things that either didn't make it into the game at the end, or affected the game's performance leading to it running poorly.

What did I learn?

Scope and scheduling. A lot of late nights went into this as scope creeped up until it hit a tipping point, with a lot of last minute work.
Puzzle clarity, making sure the player knows how to get to the solution, without directly giving it to them, and making it more interesting as a result. Also keeping in mind the platform we made it for and its limitations