Ling and the Corrupted Hollow

Gameplay Prototyping

The early development phase was highly experimental, as the core theme of commanding spirits to possess objects was established, but the overall gameplay vision remained undefined. During the prototyping phase, a ghost management system was developed to facilitate spirit dispatching and object possession, enabling possessed objects to navigate toward the camera's raycasted world position. Numerous additional features were prototyped, including patrolling enemy systems, enemy weapon possession and theft mechanics, and fishing interactions. The majority of these features were subsequently discontinued due to shifts in design direction.

Save System Programmer

The game supports three save slots with a bifurcated save architecture. Player save data encompasses character-specific information including position and currency, while system save data contains user preferences such as audio and graphics settings. A save manager component integrated into the game mode was implemented to handle serialization and deserialization of save data to persistent storage, as well as maintaining cross-level data persistence for player progression metrics such as accumulated currency.

Gameplay Object and UI Programmer

Functional implementations were developed for all systems interfacing with player persistent data. The game features two primary collectible mechanics: gold currency, obtained through collecting golden leaf pickups and used to unlock gated pathways, and soul shards, acquired upon level completion to permanently advance game progression and unlock subsequent level content. Programming contributions encompassed checkpoint systems, all gameplay object implementations, and complete user interface implementation for the aforementioned systems. Additionally, Steam achievement integration was implemented, with achievements tied to progression milestones such as currency accumulation thresholds and soul shard collection objectives.