Rebirth
About
Rebirth was created in just 10 days for the Solarpunk Game Jam by our team, Metaphorical Hotdog, despite a well-timed team trip to New Orleans that trimmed our schedule.
In Rebirth, you play as Popcorn, a robot built from a popcorn machine, on a mission to restore color and life to a devastated world by reviving a forgotten art museum. Solve three distinct puzzle rooms and collect trash to craft tools, using recycling and repurposing as your core strategy. The game’s loop centers on sustainability, challenging players to reduce waste and restore lost art with creative resourcefulness.
Project Info
Role: Unreal Engine Developer
Team Size: 7
Time Frame: 10 Days
Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Status: Ongoing bug fixes and continual polish.
Introduction
Project Rebirth is my most technically ambitious Unreal Engine 5 project, where I served as lead developer, overseeing the full lifecycle from architecture to deployment. Throughout the project, I managed the GitHub repository, proactively resolving merge conflicts and maintaining code integrity across the team. Leveraging Blueprints and Unreal’s underlying systems, I engineered a modular, scalable inventory system using GameInstance arrays to persist and dynamically rebuild inventory slots as players acquire, craft, or transfer items across levels.
Key features include a custom quick time event (QTE) mechanic for environmental cleanup, seamlessly tied to a masking array that transforms terrain from dead to restored states in real time. I implemented a crafting system deeply integrated with GameInstance, providing robust inventory validation, dynamic slot management, and efficient item replacement logic.
To support interactive storytelling, I built a flexible dialogue and interaction framework using interfaces, enabling choice-driven sequences, branching puzzles, and dynamic player interactions. My work encompassed extensive bug fixing, cross-system integration (inventory, crafting, puzzle, and dialogue), and streamlined collaboration through the creation of parent Blueprints for all major actor types.
Additional contributions include integrating audio assets with FMOD triggers, designing intuitive UI flows for the main menu and in-game inventory, and developing an accessible menu system. Project Rebirth showcases my ability to deliver scalable systems, solve complex technical challenges, and support a multidisciplinary team throughout the game development process.