INTRODUCTION

Soul Forest is small 3rd person shooter taking place in a magical forest. The player takes the role of a local spirit whose forest has been invaded by deamons. These deamons have the ability to turn local people into more deamons, so the number of enemies increase as time passes. The player's job is to navigate the world defeating the deamons and collect keys to open doors and access new areas. The palyer starts of with one type of weapon, but two other weapons with different characteristics can be collected. Alternatively, the player can dash into the enemies to inflict a small damage.

Moreover, the world is populated with geckos and deers, which can be domesticated to mount them. The animals will run away at first, but will become friendly if the player gives them sweets. Mounting geckos enables the player to run very fast, whereas riding deer allows to jump very high.

Finally, there is a settings menu that enables to tweek the sound volume, the scene brightness and the game difficulty.

HOW TO PLAY

The game is best played with a controller (such as Xbox or PlayStation), but it can also be played with keyboard and mouse.

Controls gamepad:

• Movement: left joystick
• Camera control: right joystick
• Jump: button south (A xbox)
• Aim: right RB (held)
• Shoot: button east (B xbox)
• Dash: button north (Y xbox)
• Mount/dismount a tamed animal: button west (X xbox)
• Switch weapons: left LB
• Drop sweet: press right joystick

Cntrols keyboard and mouse:

• Movement: WASD
• Camera control: mouse movement
• Jump: spacebar
• Aim: mouse right button (held)
• Shoot: mouse left button
• Dash: E
• Mount/dismount: Z
• Switch weapons: C
• Drop sweet: R

The game was designed to be played in a 16:9 resolution. To play from the Editor, open the project with said Unity version, go to the scene SplashScreen (Assets/Scenes), and click on play. Alternatively, you can make a local build. To do so, go to File/Build Settings, and select "Windos, Mac, Linux" as Platform. On target platform, select "Windows". Finally, click on the "Build and Run" button to make the local build.

Here you can see a gameplay video:

https://youtu.be/3qSVcQ4Jwv0

DEVELOPMENT

The game has been developed with Unity version 2021.3.19f and Visual Studio 2022. The input has been programmed using the New Input Sytem, in order to enable playing both with a controller and with a mouse. Behavior Designer was used to build the behavior trees for the IA of the animals.

ASSETS USED

Scenario 3D models:

• Village houses: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/desert-village-houses-lowpoly-200247

• Player: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/low-character-pack-free-sample-192954

• Key: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/props/rust-key-167590

• Potions: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/props/potions-115115

• Enemies: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/fantasy-stickman-pack-194654

• Trees and ruins: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/the-lost-lands-97698

• Weapons: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/props/weapons/free-rpg-weapons-199738

• Animals: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/animals/quirky-series-free-animals-pack-178235

Animations:

• Mixamo: https://www.mixamo.com/

Shaders:

• Flatkit cartoon shader: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/vfx/shaders/flat-kit-toon-shading-and-water-143368

• Highlight: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/particles-effects/highlight-plus-134149

Music and SFX:

Obtained from freesound.org and opengameart.org, links below. Some of them have been slightly modified with Audacity

• Tiny worlds: https://opengameart.org/content/forest-ambience

• Brandon Morris: https://opengameart.org/content/creepy-forest-f

• Podcapocalipsis: https://freesound.org/people/Podcapocalipsis/sounds/578601/

• Remoz: https://freesound.org/people/Remoz/sounds/123310/

• Little Robot Sound Factory: https://opengameart.org/content/fantasy-sound-effects-library

• Rubberduck https://opengameart.org/content/80-cc0-creature-sfx

• Otto Halmén: https://opengameart.org/content/death-is-just-another-path

• Pauliuw: https://opengameart.org/content/the-field-of-dreams

• Scrabbit: https://opengameart.org/content/world-map-1

• Blender Foundation: https://opengameart.org/content/pick-up-item-yo-frankie

• JUDITH136: https://freesound.org/people/JUDITH136/sounds/408012/

• BloodPixelHero: https://freesound.org/people/BloodPixelHero/sounds/504651/

• Lerdavian: https://freesound.org/people/Lerdavian/sounds/321982/

• Cynicmusic: https://opengameart.org/content/mysterious-ambience-song21

• Darsycho: https://opengameart.org/content/tiny-vicious-creature

• InspectorJ: https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/421022/

• Qubodup: https://opengameart.org/content/dog-grunt

• Lokif: https://opengameart.org/content/gui-sound-effects

Fonts:

• Back to the fantasy, Woodcutter: https://www.dafont.com/es/back-to-the-fantasy.font

• Blood & Horror, Woodcutter: https://www.dafont.com/es/blood-horror.font

• Cute Aurora, 611 Studio: https://www.dafont.com/es/search.php?q=cute+aurora

Textures

• Flowers and grass: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/textures-materials/nature/grass-and-flowers-pack-1-17100

• Gradient texture generator for the water: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/utilities/gradient-texture-generator-216180

• Terrain textures: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/textures-materials/handpainted-grass-ground-textures-187634

VFX:

• Cartoon vfx: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/vfx/particles/cartoon-fx-remaster-free-109565

Asset cleaner:

• Used to delete unused assets from the project: https://github.com/unity-cn/Tool-UnityAssetCleaner

Behavior Designer:

• Used to create the Behavior Trees: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/visual-scripting/behavior-designer-behavior-trees-for-everyone-15277