Project HAU (Working Title)

The Elevator Pitch: A 2.5D pixel art adventure that lets players explore the Holy Angel University campus, complete student-life quests, and uncover university secrets.

Project Status: The Campus in Godot (2.5D)

The game is now built in Godot 4.7.2 as a 2.5D world: pixel art in a real 3D space, with lighting, shadows and a time-of-day cycle, seen through a side-view camera that turns to face each building. Everything stands on the team's real campus plan, at 1:1 scale, drawn from our own photos. The project lives in src/drafts/aps-godot/.

What you can explore so far:

• APS (Archbishop Pedro Santos Building): the full frontage, the ground-floor hallway with the bust and the campus map, the canteen with its stalls, and the brick patio.
• The Chapel of the Holy Guardian Angel: its plaza, oval parking and the lawn paths round it.
• The Immaculate Heart Gymnasium: outside at its real size, and inside: the court with the HAU seal, the bleachers on both sides (you can climb them), the curved stage with WELCOME ANGELITES, the balcony, the lobby, the equipment room, the corridors and the backstage rooms. Walking in glides the camera inside, and whatever is in the way fades out.
• St. Joseph Hall: its covered walkway, the Mary statue garden and the parking.
• MGN (Mamerto G. Nepomuceno Building): from outside on its plot by the west road, walkable up to the turnstile.
• The middle road between PGN and MGN: the divided boulevard with its covered walkways, out to the flagpole.
• Campus NPCs: eight students and staff who stroll, stand at their posts, wave when you come near and talk. They ask questions, and they remember your answers for the session.
• Weather and sound: rain that comes and goes (wet ground, puddles, umbrellas), light shafts and falling leaves, the murmur of students, birds by day and crickets at night.

Every other building is a reserved plot on the campus plan, waiting for its turn. The first browser prototype (a 2D side-view game on our own small engine) still runs, but new work goes into Godot.

Play It

You need: Godot 4.7.2 (the standard build, not .NET) and a graphics card with Vulkan (the game uses the Forward+ renderer). Nothing else: no other downloads, add-ons or audio files.

1. Get the repository (git clone, or pull the latest).
2. Tell the launcher where Godot is, one of:
   • put Godot_v4.7.2-stable_win64.exe (and its _console.exe) in builds\godot-tools\4.7.2\ (ignored by git), or
   • set GODOT to the full path of your Godot executable, or
   • have godot on your PATH.
3. Import once after cloning, or after pulling new sprites: open src/drafts/aps-godot/project.godot in the Godot editor, or run tools\run-aps-godot.cmd --headless --import. Skipping this makes new images fail to load.
4. Play: run tools\run-aps-godot.cmd, or press F5 in the editor. The window opens at 1600x900; F11 is fullscreen.

The first launch on a computer plays the opening (in Tagalog; it touches on depression and suicide, with a content warning and a help line). It can only be skipped once it has been watched to the end; after that, hold Space or Esc to skip it.

Key	Action
A / D, W / S (or arrows)	Walk (relative to the camera)
Shift	Run
E, Space or Enter	Talk to someone nearby (or pet a cat); pick a reply with W / S and E, 1-3 or the mouse
Mouse wheel, + / -	Zoom
1-9, 0	Framings: APS, building, corridor, canteen, close-up, chapel, IH Gym, gym side, St. Joseph Hall, inside the gym
Q / E, or right-drag	Turn the camera a little (E talks instead when someone is in reach)
T	Dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, golden hour, dusk, night
G	Weather: clear, overcast, rain, thunderstorm, windy (it also changes on its own)
C	Boy / girl
M	Mute
P	Pixels: Auto, Crisp, Chunky
F1	Fast travel (dev): jump to any of 31 places
F2	Free camera (dev): fly anywhere; F2 or Esc lands back on the student
R / F11 / Tab / Esc	Reset / fullscreen / hide controls / close

Checks: tools\run-aps-godot.cmd --headless -- --test prints a JSON report; every check must be true. Performance: --bench=<path>, see PERFORMANCE_REPORT.md.

Known issues

• No standalone .exe yet. There are no export presets; play through Godot as above. Exporting needs Godot's export templates (a separate download from the same page).
• The first visit to an area can hitch once while Godot compiles shaders for your graphics card. They are cached (%APPDATA%\Project HAU APS Prototype\shader_cache), so only the first time.
• Nothing is saved between runs, except that the opening has been watched.
• Quitting prints a few engine "leaked" and "Unreferenced static string" lines in the console. They are harmless.
• Another game or video playing at the same time shares the graphics card and lowers the frame rate.

The browser prototype (frozen)

The original 2D prototype (the Side Gate, the DJN Building and the Epiphany of Angels park) still runs in the browser with Node.js 20 or newer: npm install, then npm run dev and open http://localhost:5173. It is kept as a reference; new work goes into Godot.

The Core Vision

• Genre: 2.5D Side-View Narrative Adventure (free roam)
• Art Style: Pixel art in a 3D world, with soft lighting, real shadows and a time-of-day cycle. Every rule is in docs/godot-art-style.md.
• Engine: Godot 4 (everything is built in code, on the team's campus plan grid)
• Setting: The Holy Angel University campus in Angeles City, built 1:1 from the real buildings
• Core Loop: Walk around campus, go into buildings, talk to people, look at things, tick off small goals.
• Language: Taglish, with a bit of Kapampangan (an English setting is available in the browser prototype).

This is a student project. It is not an official product of Holy Angel University, and every character in it is made up.

Repository Navigation

• src/drafts/aps-godot/ - The game in Godot (the scene, the buildings in areas/, the NPCs, weather and sound, the shaders, the sprites).
• docs/ - Game Design Document (GDD), quest outlines, campus lore, and the Godot style guide (docs/godot-art-style.md).
• assets/ - Reference photos of every building, and the character sources the Godot sprites are built from (drafts/characters/).
• src/ - The code (the frozen browser prototype in src/game/, the Godot game in src/drafts/aps-godot/).
• tools/ - Development utilities: run the Godot game, take review captures, export the campus plan.
• builds/ - Playable prototypes and milestone releases.
• history/ - Session logs and handoff notes. Read history/README.md and history/CONTEXT.md every time you pull.

License

This is private work. Only the team and collaborators added by the repository owner may use, copy or contribute to it. See LICENSE.

The Team

A closed 7-person project developed within the School of Computing.

• Sean Rhani Dela Cruz
• Mikko Brandon Panergo
• Jorel Kesse Marquez
• Gil Miranda
• Mclaren Ais Miranda
• Cyrel Lloyd Lasola
• Bernard Rodriguez Jr.

Team Workflow

To keep our repository clean and avoid merge conflicts, please follow these guidelines:

1. Review Before Building: Read history/CONTEXT.md, the newest session log, and docs/godot-art-style.md before starting anything new.
2. Build on the Plan: Every building goes on its own plot in the campus plan, in its own file in src/drafts/aps-godot/areas/.
3. Work on a Branch: Make a branch, open a pull request, and run the checks before asking for a merge. main needs the owner's approval.
4. Use the Drafts: Keep messy experiments, test code, and WIP sprites inside the drafts/ folders in src/ and assets/.
5. Communicate: Ping the group chat before pushing major changes or restructuring any core files.

Git & .gitignore Rules

To prevent our repository from becoming bloated and to avoid breaking each other's local setups, we rely on a strict .gitignore policy.

• No personal IDE settings: Keep personal workspace configurations (like .vscode/ settings) on your own machine.
• No engine caches or logs: Godot's .godot/ folder, *.import files, crash logs and user preference files must not be committed. Do commit the *.uid files Godot creates next to scripts.
• No compiled builds or engine binaries: Exported executables, the Godot editor itself and playable versions inside builds/ are ignored to save repository space.
• Large Files: Standard GitHub blocks files over 100MB. If you are adding massive audio tracks or uncompressed sprite sheets, let the team know so we can configure Git LFS (Large File Storage).
• Note: If you install a new tool or plugin that generates temporary junk files, please update the .gitignore file immediately before committing.