In Silence
Thriller | Solo Project | 2022
Project Details
Project Details
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Focus: Level Design & Gameplay Design
AI Scripting
Graduation Capstone Project
Demo
I've been working on a project since November of 2021. It's a stealth horror experience taking place in an underground science facility. You, the player, wake to find the whole place to be trashed with no explanation and no memory of where you are. The player must traverse their way through this building with limited light and restore the elevator's power to leave the building.
But not without trouble, it is shown that this science facility was testing on humans that went wrong. These mutated beings have heightened hearing and show lots of aggression but with vision loss and a hive mind. Can you escape this building while being quiet as a mouse or will you fall victim to the same beings you worked on?
Level
Framing
Enemy
the player can see the threats in the next area and act accordingly
First Objective
the player sees a battery and the insert area close and safe
locked and unlocked areas
using colours the player can tell what area will be unlocked by their first objective (and if they miss it there is a cinematic opening the door)
overall objective
as the player progresses when placing batteries in the generator the pillars light up keeping track of their overall progress
Visual Progression
Used many areas in the game that changed as the player progressed
This helps
Motivate
Guild
Help
The player through the game
Gameplay
Key cards
Players must find keycards to open locked doors to progress to the next area.
Batteries
As the power is out the player must traverse the map looking for Batteries to restore power to the elevator and escape the building.
Throwable Objects
The player is able to throw objects to distract enemies
Sound-based Enemies
The more noise the player makes the more the enemies that will wake up and attack the player
Scripted Events
many scripted events where the player may be jump scared, a pipe blows up and takes the player’s escape path.
doors closing when the player is running from enemies, enemies making noises when they are close
Enemy Placement
In Silence
Overall, my game is a stealth thriller experience focused (primarily) on level design by using lighting and many other aspects of level design to lead the player while also giving them the choice of their actions and decisions. The main threat in this game are a hive mind group of mutated humans that have enhanced hearing (inspired by the movie “A Quiet Place”).
The player must solve some puzzles and explore the world. The second focus is environment design. The game is completely grey blocked using environment design, I wanted to show my strengths of bringing a world to life, while also creating my intended gameplay feel I intended without the help of assets and other items.
Pre-Production
Idea
From the beginning, I knew I wanted to make some sort of Triller Game with the player having to sneak around with creatures that they could not defend against. Inspired by GTFO the game and Movies like Don’t Breath and A Quiet Place.
Enemies
Enemy Inspiration: GTFO
as a fan of the game GTFO, I instantly knew what kind of enemies I wanted to have in the game. Fast monsters who hunt by sound. After I knew what enemies to have in the game I started to research their behaviors and coded the enemies accordingly.
Like before I studied sound-based movie monsters like A Quiet Place once I understood how characters, the audience, and monsters reacted and found ways to live and maneuver around these creatures I made the monsters completely sound-based.
Player
In pre-production I wanted the player to avoid creatures when they could, use tools when they couldn’t, and fight their way out as a last resort. (Section: Player) will cover this in detail.
Level
Originally, I wanted to Create a cave, swamp-like world for the player to traverse through so I gathered references from games that used this well, like Hunt: Showdown. After some prototyping, I settled on a mechanical facility like the movie Alien.
Prototypes
The game went through many gameplay, and level designs before I confidently chose one that proved to be the most fun for players while keeping the thriller aspect of the game.
Gameplay Prototypes
Cut Mechanics
Melee
Melee was originally in the game so the player could take out the threats that were blocking progress. This didn’t cause many problems gameplay-wise but this severely distracted from the main focus of the game (stealth, thriller)
Problems
Took away the threat of the enemy
When players had a melee weapon they would often head straight for the enemy and kill them removing the fear and danger aspect of the enemy.
Often led to players dying themselves
Players would not play the way ai was designed, players would often run around and attack the enemy and if they were unsuccessful they would most often die because they were not scared of making noise (making noise allows the ai to attack the player).
Counter acted the “silent” mechanic
When players would kill the monster it would often break immersion because smacking somthing with a bat and killing it is not often a silent way to do things and more than often players would expect ai to hear their attacks.
Solution
Removing melee kept the consistency of the game loop
after removing the player attack, brought back the core loop of the game (searching for objects, sneaking past enemies,)
Returned the threat of the enemy
it also brought back the threat of the enemies because players now avoided the monsters rather than looking for them to kill them to take away the threat.
Cut Mechanics
Spriting
Spriting was originally a feature to help the player run from the enemies
Problems
Players would often get caught due to sprinting
When players could always sprint they often would, this would cause players to make alot of noise and often die without understanding why
“If I can run I will”
when players found out about the sprinting, they would not stop and again die
Players who played slow had a better experience
Overall playtest the players with the overall best experience were the ones who didn’t utilize the printing mechanic
Solution
Remove sprinting
after removing the player sprinting this forced them to play slower, also made them feel more vulnerable, and scared this also helped the game pacing overall
slowing players walk speed
. this helped mainly with pacing
