Husk Planet

Husk Planet is an 18-person FIEA capstone project centered around deciphering an unknown alien language. As the team's UI Lead and Technical Designer, I was responsible for designing and implementing every user-interface system in the game, from its title screen and settings menus to the diegetic interfaces used throughout its puzzles and environments.

The largest of these systems was a Pokédex-inspired dictionary and notetaking mechanic that allows players to catalogue alien glyphs as they explore. Undiscovered symbols can be scanned directly from objects in the world, recorded in the player's notebook, and assigned custom notes based on what the player believes they mean. Those notes then follow the glyph throughout the environment until its true translation is discovered, at which point every instance updates to display its confirmed definition.

I also designed and implemented several more elaborate diegetic interactions, including inspecting and scanning glyphs from a physical book and operating an intentionally outdated, damaged computer through the player's futuristic handheld device. These sequences combined UI scripting, animation, effects, custom camera choreography, and contributions I directed from other disciplines to make the interfaces feel like believable objects within the world. During production, my responsibilities also expanded to include every fixed camera angle and transition throughout the game's second level.