Treasure Hunter

Meet Dr. Murphy, an archaeologist you've hired to help explore the desert.
Solve ancient puzzles
And unlock ancient secrets

Treasure Hunter is the beginnings of a multi-chapter point and click adventure. Work together with your newly found partner, Dr. Murphy, and track down ancient secrets sealed away for millennia.

Inspiration

I grew up playing point 'n clicks and thought it would be a fun way to mess around with Tap-To-Move and AI NPCs. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Monkey Island were some of the most influential games for me growing up, I'm hoping to recapture some of that magic.

What it does

Implements a Tap-To-Move system for navigating the world, as well as Tap-To-Interact for interacting with objects in the world. Camera triggers allow the player camera to change dynamically for each set scene.
Your AI companion, Murphy, reacts to what's happening around her, can be talked to for hints, and can even be used to solve puzzles. There are dozens of contexts provided and used by the event system. There is a bug where my NPCs keep defaulting to regular avatars, so if that happens, you'll have to imagine her as in the video
Pick up items and use them from your inventory hotbar in order to solve puzzles.
Includes many custom animations for the player's character when interacting with the environment.
The game also utilizes screen fades, environment changes, tutorials, and more.

How we built it

This game was built in my spare time after work, which isn't very much. The assets included are fairly minimal. Most of the SFX, audio, environments, and some models are generated with Meta AI tools.

Challenges we ran into

Murphy is supposed to a Meta Avatar AI NPC but my account is bugged and I am unable to edit or create that form of NPC. So she can't wear outfits that I was planning to create and I was forced to use the meta AI generation to make a somewhat acceptable temporary model. Support tickets have been in for weeks, but it seems to be a complex issue. My NPCs also sometimes revert randomly to a basic NPC and loses my custom mesh, hopefully that doesn't happen during judging.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Creating this game in just my spare time on weekends feels like quite an accomplishment. I couldn't get everything in that I wanted - but that's pretty much always the case, isn't it? I think it has turned out pretty cool.

What we learned

I learned a lot about tap-to-move, mobile camera systems, and NPCs. I'm really excited to see what all I can do with Murphy as I continue to tweak and adjust her parameters, fed information, etc.

What's next for Treasure Hunter

More Levels & World Streaming. I'd like to have the menu simply link to different chapters which are then streamed in. This would also allow individual levels to be bigger and more complex. It wasn't necessary for this competition, but I'd love to keep expanding on this.
Upgrade Murphy to NPC Avatar. There are quite a few things that I had planned to have Murphy do with animations and clothing, but since my account is unable to create Avatar NPCs, I've had to settle with mostly talking, hints, and a single puzzle solution that requires teamwork.
Inventory Upgrades. The current inventory was not made with Noesis since I simply didn't have time to learn it and use it - and it didn't seem necessary for this rudimentary implementation. But in the future I'd like the ability to combine items and expand the inventory, so I will certainly switch to Noesis for that.
NPCs and Dialogues. An entire dialogue system (and access to Meta Avatars once the bug is fixed) will allow me to populate areas with many NPCs to create new and fun puzzles.
Co-Op Gameplay. I would like to make some chapters that require 2 players instead of, or in addition to, Dr. Murphy. Working together on puzzles with VOIP will be awesome.