Hey! I’m Charlie, an aspiring Gameplay Designer finishing up his final year at UCA! I want to create games with a balance of gameplay and themes, I feel to make a truly memorable experience, both the fun and artistry of a game need to be taken into account. I feel like I’ve grown so much over these past few years, and really reflected on myself, so I wanted to create the most ‘me’ game I could, really show what I enjoy making. I settled on a topic I’ve struggled with for a long while, social masking, in the form of my favourite genre, the Platformer.
My Many Masks is a 2.5D, Sidescrolling Platformer that focuses on the abilities of six different coloured masks and forming bonds with the NPCs you meet along the way. You play as a young, autistic person who plans to travel to various locations in an attempt to make friends and connections. However, they aren’t all too confident in themselves, and use the power of different masks to give them a leg up. But hiding your true self can be tiring, sometimes you need a moment to be yourself, and take a deep breath…
This short demo I created features three full stages, with a hidden fourth, six masks with unique abilities, various NPCs to talk to, a hand-drawn art-style, original music, and various options and little quirks to discover.
The game was created in Unreal Engine, and I mainly worked on this project alone, with a little help on the music and modelling side of things. But the blueprints and the 2D art were all me. I’ve learnt a ton about Unreal’s blueprints over the past few years, and really enjoyed messing around with them to get the exact movements I had in mind, plus I’ve also been doodling as long as I can remember, so knew I wanted to incorporate my art in a game somehow.
I’m really proud of how this project turned out. It’s a ton of content for such a short production cycle, it really ended up feeling like a real game! An actual real one! It’s been my dream for so long to make games, but never really knew how to get into it, but now I’ve come so far, and couldn’t be prouder of myself. I look forward to where this project, and I, end up going in the future.
BA (Hons) Games Design 
