Life Flashes By
Spring 2026 | 16 Weeks
A video game designed to integrate the DualSense controller’s features with an emotional narrative.
Role
Creative Director, Game Developer, Storywriter
Concept
Video Game Senior Capstone
Team
Allison Atilano - Game Sprites Artist, Cadince Allen - Game Assets Artist, Nadya Dominique - Voice Actor for “Lu”
Concept
The DualSense controller has many features and capabilities that are underutilized in video games. They are used as a gimmick in most games, where they are reduced to a rumble walking on a texture on tension on the triggers when you pull a bow. Life Flashes By is a video game designed with the DualSense controller in mind with the goal of using as a tool in storytelling.
Research
Through a competitive across 10 different games that have unique responsive gameplay integrated with the story, 7 of those used the DualSense controller. However, in the games with haptic feedback integrate with gameplay, it is mostly used for weapons. Sound and vibrations are mostly used for the environmental feedback.
Story and Inspirations
To effectively integrate the DualSense controller with a story that creates emotional immersion, I took inspiration from my own personal life to make the story more personable. Bellow is a video shown during presentations that summarizes the game story. The main character Lu is short for my middle name, Luciana. She is based off myself when I was 14/15 having not been taught Spanish and did not have a quinceañera. My mother assimilated into American culture after immigrating from Mexico and thought my sister and I would have an easier time not forcing us to participate in traditions. This put myself in a strange position where I was “not Mexican enough” to fit the expectations of my Mexican side of the family, but too Mexican to fit the expectations of my white side of the family.
Game video shown at presentations
All aspects of the story were intentionally thought out to create empathy that gets heightened with gameplay mechanics. The demo script is fully written out connecting all points together which helped my team move forward better having the context to where their work was going.
The characters were designed intentionally with their names acting as foreshadowing to their role in the story. This combined with the script guided the artists creating all needed assets for the game which I put together in a art book that was shown at my exhibition.
Game Mechanics
The DualSense controller was essential to gameplay. Those three features of rumbling, adaptive triggers, and audio from the speakers were what I focused on at the core. However, mid development I discovered that Sony had hardwired the controller to not be able to project sound without a PlayStation 5 developer kit. This led me to create a two-way audio system where the controller would act as a second speaker only for dialogue. While I got it to successfully work, Unreal Engine made it garbled and made this feature scrapped from the game due to time constraints. The adaptive triggers and rumble still work being present as the player snaps a photo feeling tension in the triggers and heartbeat vibrations when Lu gets flustered.
Exhibition
My exhibition space was designed to mimic the setting of the story. I was inspired by Disney and Universal theme parks immersive set designs and wanted to recreate a living room birthday party area so that guests could step into my space curious on what to expect.
Reflection
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