Cooper Fink Game Portfolio

Conk Out: Game Information

Project Length – 8 Weeks
Project Team Size – 5 People
Project Role – Producer/Game Designer
Engine – Unreal 4

Conk Out is a first person puzzle game that follows main character as they try to fall asleep while thinking about the day they just had. You play through 3 levels, each one stretching further into a dream as you get closer to falling asleep. This game is not available to play but the full walkthrough can be found in the YouTube video.

My Role: Production

I was responsible for I was also responsible for managing the team and dealing with errors in GitHub for this project.

As producer, I was responsible for managing the team, ensuring the work was completed, and making changes when issues came up. I created and used the asset list to figure out what to assign and tracked those assigned tasks using Discord. Due to the small team and short timeframe, there was not a lot of direct management needed, most of my was spent checking in for task progress, advising them where to focus their attention next, and changing my design based on the teams constraints. I also managed the GitHub repository and fixed issues that came from the team not pushing and pulling correctly.

My Role: Design

I was responsible for designing all the levels and puzzles, and creating the design document.

As designer, I created a first person, puzzle exploration game where each level stretched further from reality. The first stage has the player looking for their lost homework, the second stage has the player doing math equations with chess pieces, and the third stage has the player freeing pieces of a face to escape the area using parkour. Each puzzle was meant to show the player how close they were to falling asleep through the absurdity of the task. Every puzzle was telegraphed to the player using an object within the world. The first level did this in a very obvious way, but the second and third level used in-game blackboards to hint at what the player should do. The look and layout of the levels themselves also represented how close the player is to falling asleep. I created the levels directly in the engine. There was no planning for the layout before I started building it, I came up with the flow while I was building it into the engine.