DETAILS
Responsibility
SOLACE
Solace is a third-person action game for PC, where the player controls a treasure hunter who manipulates the elements to destroy his enemies. The goal is to find and collect artifacts that allow the manipulation of new elements.
CATEGORY
Level Design
Game Designer
Gameplay / Level scripter
VFX artist
Tech artist
Lighting artist
PRODUCTION
2 Months Pre-Production
4 Months Development
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Design with 2D layout
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Whiteboxing
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Set Dressing
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Create level design tools alongside programmers
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Design narrative events
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Scripting level and combat beats
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Script set pieces using visual scripting
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Proactively iterating and balancing gameplay though playtest and feedback
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Implementation of sound with collaboration
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Produced all shaders and VFX for different environments using Unreal’s Cascade and Niagara systems.
ENGINE
Unreal Engine 4.20.3
RELEASED
04/2019
TYPE
Final Project at VFS
TEAM SIZE
9
COLLABORATIONS
4 Sound designers
1 Voice actor
2 Artist
2 Programers
Vlog of the entire process - https://bit.ly/2UUFAwV
Trailer
Game Screenshots
Final Gameplay Screenshots
Final
1 Weeks
As this was the last week for us to work on our game we spend most of our time playtesting to tweak the gameplay as well as optimize the game even more. We also started working on the game trailer and Finalise all the sound in the game.
Final Gameplay Video
Beta
1 Weeks
As Beta was just a week after Alpha, we spend most of our time polishing the game and the boss fight. I spent a lot of the time finishing up and optimizing my VFX and lighting. During this period the level layout had been finalized therefore we were replacing whit box to static mesh. As we had locked all content of the game we also worked closely with our sound designers to start mixing the SFX and music of the game.
Risk/ Problems
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More Feedback
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More Playtest
Fixes
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Had more playtest
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Used the feedback from players to balance combat and puzzle as well as tweaking the boss's stats and abilities for players to feel satisfied when killing the boss but yet dynamic to let any kind of skilled player Play the entire game and still finish it.
Boss Fight
A week before we hit alpha our team came up with the idea of adding a boss to the end of the game. As we were happy with at the pace we were moving.
At this point, we still had an anticlimactic ending. Therefore as a team came together to make a plan of implementing a boss for the end of the game. As this was a very risky decision we had to put into place strict contingency plans for how we were going to implement this boss and how long we all had to deliver this feature.
This meant I had to prototype a whole new room with the scale of the boss in mind. This was a huge undertaking especially this late in the project.
I immediately started prototyping layouts in 2D and white box so that we could get the sense of scale and feel of the boss.
One of my feat I wanted to achieve while creating this boss fight was for the player to use all the three elements they have received over the entire game upto this point to take down the boss. As this was also an area where the player found a new element I had to teach the player how to use the mechanic before the boss battle.
Risk/ Problems
Fixes
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Late additions
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Less polished compared to the remaining game - As it was a huge undertaking this meant spending less time polishing the remaining of the game.
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Feel good- Making the boss feel fun to play but also satisfying to defeat.
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Less polished compared to the remaining game - To make sure we polished the entire game while we did implement the boss meant that as a team we had to have immense communication between all sections at all times.
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Feel good - The only way to test this was to have a large group of playtesting and keep iterating till it feels good
Boss Fight Video
Alpha
1 Weeks
During this phase, we had made a lot of changes through playtesting and the feedback we received. Also at this point, the artist had a lot of the art in the game which gave more depth to the world and I had completed my first pass VFX and lighting for the entire game. We had a major playtest session during this phase, where we had over 20 playtest playing and giving us feedback on our game.
I had to work closely with the environmental artist to set dress the level a make it feel realistic.
Risk/ Problems
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The player got lost - Player got lost in certain sections of the map.
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Player feedback - The main character didn't have enough feedback to him.
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Teaching new mechanics - Player we confused on how to use the light ability.
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More combat - Player wanted more combat in the game.
Fixes
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Player's got lost - This was fixed as I had first pass lighting had been implemented and as well as the meshes added by the artist.
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Player feedback - As we planned to make our game using mostly Diagetic UI we had to come up with solutions by looking at other games to solve problems like how to communicate to the player the characters health and switching of elements. We planned on having holographic UI from the players back to indicate the player's health.
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Teaching mechanics - As players did not realize they had to use the light as ammo in the spotlights. I made shaders that covered the spotlight attenuation radius to give player's a more clear understanding of where they could use the ability and where the could not.
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More combat - We saw people enjoyed using the mechanics so we doubled the size of combat areas and cut down on some of the connecting paths to have more combat spaces.
Alpha Video
Milestone 3
2 Weeks
This Milestone was the most important for us as a team. During this milestone, we had a great deal of work ahead.
We had plenty of machines and assets to implement and test.
We worked with our sound designers to get a lot of the SFX and music in the game.
Risk/ Problems
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Teaching mechanics - As a level and game designer, it is very important for players to understand the different mechanics and how they work with the world.
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Feedback / Progression- Giving player's feedback of damage on enemy and player
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Anti-climatic end - The last element of earth felt powerful but the players didn't have much use of it.
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Combat - As we were an action game we were still light on action in the game.
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Embracing playtest - During playtesting player wanted to explore more and have more interactions with the world
Fixes
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Teaching mechanics - During a mentor session, a mentor helped me to understand for players to understand a certain mechanic a player has to be forced to use the mechanic three times before they remember it instively As we didn't have a separate tutorial level, therefore, it was a problem I had to solve by iterating on the gameplay through playtesting and feedback from playtesters.
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Feedback / Progression - As I was also the VFX artist and lighting artist. It was my job to use lighting, VFX and level design to show progression and give player feedback of the actions they did.
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Combat - Originally we made invulnerability stages for the enemy. But soon it came to our attention player never seems to understand therefore we made a decision as a group to drop integrability stages on the enemies.
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Embracing playtests - We added more areas for players to explore and find special reward if they do so.
M3 Video
Milestone 2
3 Weeks
During this time period, the team's main focus was to get all the gameplay working with the world. We had to brainstorm different ways we could use the "manipulating elements" mechanic. We tested a bunch of different ideas and landed to the desition that each element will have combat and a puzzle use.
Risk/ Problems
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The world felt empty - As we focused to get a mechanic to feel cohesive with the world there wasn't much gameplay implemented yet
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Missing room - We still had an empty room in the area between the lightroom and the final room
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Mission scripting - Started gameplay scripting for the level.
Fixes
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The world felt empty - I had to have strong communications between the artist and programmers to implement assets and mechanics in the game. I made sub-levels so that I and the artist could work at the same level at the same time without affecting each other work
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Missing room - I started paper layouts of what the room could look like and the different mechanic could work together.
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Mission scripting - With the start of the mission scripting I also had to start working on the loading and unloading of sublevel seamlessly so that people could play the game with no hitch in framerate.
Prototype layout of the missing room
M2 Screenshots
M2 Video
Milestone 1
3 Weeks
During the first few weeks, I had the Entire game White boxed and had basic first pass player mechanics and level scripting done. The layout gave us an approximate idea of how our core gameplay loop played out and how we could fit the gameplay experience within a 5-10 minute time frame.
Risk/ Problems
As this was early in the production cycle we were happy with the progress we were making but we had a clear idea of what issues we could run into while playing the game.
Some of the issues we knew we had to fix were;
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The Camera - The camera's position blocked most of the gameplay and clipped through the level.
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Level Content - Now that we had the basic layout we had to figure how to fill all these areas with fitting Combat and exploration encounters to fill the world.
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Backtracking - Players could backtrack and skip content which could lead in breaking the game.
Fixes
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The camera - We offset the camera to the right. This help the player see more of the screen but also see the actions done by the character. Also, there were major changes in the level to fit the third person camera
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Level Content - As a level and game designer I had to figure out how to fill the 5 minutes will enjoyable content that was cohesive with our theme
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Backtracking - We planned to have destructible mesh and drop downs to block the player from backtracking more than we wanted. but at this point, we thought of using this problem as a solution and made the main mission for the player to pick the artifacts and come back to the same room where the bridge broke. this fit the level very well and explained progression well.
M1 Screenshots
M1 Video
Final 2D Layout
As we had to make a 5 - 10-minute experience we had to pull back on the scale of the Game. After defining a few specific moments we wanted to showcase. We as a team decided this would be the Rought Layout of the game.
LEVEL FIRST PASS
This layout gives more information about how the level layout could look like with a little more information regarding major pickups, path layout and the different heights of the terrain.
CATACOMBS PROTOTYPE LAYOUT
The first Prototype of how the level could look like during pre-production phase. It consists of the high-level concept of the level.