Dateline Noir is a "metaphorical" point and click mystery game. The game itself does not exist, but a mockup for what the main menu of the game does.
We were tasked with coming up with an interactive main menu for a
metaphorical game that we could create. The menu was supposed to show
different kinesthetic experiences; motion, sound, visual effects, et
cetera.
I designed Dateline Noir's menu to be a detective's desk, complete
with stereotypical items from the genre; a revolver acting as the quit
menu, a clipboard acting as the options menu, a badge and ID card
acting as the credits, and a rotary phone acting as the start game
button. These ordinary objects have some level of implicit
significance to them, and I gave them as much interactability and
polish as possible to get my vision across.
These were solo projects, so I had to do everything from the modeling to the programming. Everything was done in Unity and Blender over the course of a week.
I was determined to make this project completely from scratch using
only visual and scripting assets that I created, despite the ability
we were given to use assets from third party stores and plugins. I
declined to use Cinemachine or modeling resources, instead scripting
and modeling the entire project from scratch.
Although this project might be less visually impressive
than its predecessors and successors who used more graphically
appealing asset packs, I'm very proud to say it looks appealing enough
as a mockup with what I created.
The project received a 5/5 on Game Feel/Innovation, a 5/5 on Composition, a 4.5/5 on Continuity, and a 5/5 on Theming.