AdHoc: Dispatch Prototype
An early Unity prototype of AdHoc Studio's Dispatch. I built a graph based dialogue system and dynamic video playback systems.
Overview
AdHoc Studio lead Dennis Lenart reached out in need of a Unity Engineer. Through a connection from Schell Games, I was introduced to the pre-production team over at AdHoc Studios.
The goal was to build an early prototype the studio heads could use to pitch the game around the games industry. I was tasked as a Unity Engineer to build out a graph-based dialogue system and the in-game UI — proving out the basics of what would become the successful title Dispatch. Below is a video of that resulting demo, in the very early stages of the game's development.
My Role
As I joined the project, I was handed some early blockouts and sketches along with a rough storyboard — all the scenes, pathways, and beats for the demo's content. My first task was to create a dialogue system using Unity's (then new) visual scripting nodes. I built custom nodes to drive a key-mapped, cardinal-direction choice wheel that tied into the various scenarios of the game.
To get this running, I also had to create a video storage and playback system, where a dialogue choice would trigger its associated video clip — giving the player the impression that their actions were moving the story forward. This included early-outs for a player who made their choice while dialogue was still ongoing.
This project was a blast to work on. There was one other in-house AdHoc engineer who was new to Unity, so my secondary responsibility was to teach them how to use Unity and how to best utilize the systems I was building. Overall it was a great experience — and one I didn't see release until years after I made that initial proof of concept.