Summer Project Week 3: Mechanics & Themes

19/07/21

The design pillars of this level include exploration, immersion, and the use of meaningful encounters through enemies and environmental storytelling.

Immersion and Environmental Storytelling

Since I am using fixed camera angles for most of the game, I have thought of ways to take advantage of them both from a gameplay standpoint and a visual one. The fixed cameras will be set up like security cameras, with the use of a dim blue tinted filter, a blinking recording light, rooms labelled appropriately, and a timer to show how long the player has been exploring the premises. I intend to set up the cameras in this way as I want the player to continually have that chilling feeling of being watched by an unknown entity. When the level starts, an unknown voice can be heard which will task the player with opening the door at the top of the stairs in the starting room. The player can assume that freedom will be behind that door, in the hope of revealing the mysterious person who was constantly watching them. The idea of being watched lends itself very well with fixed cameras as the player can divulge the placement of certain cameras and make them feel like the cameras themselves do not want to be discovered, when placed in abstract locations. An example of this is placing a camera on a bookcase between two books. This is a common way to hide cameras and the goal in certain rooms like these is for the player to find out where they are located, in relation to the fixed cameras, and interact with them in order to make light of the objective within that room.

Cameras will also be used in hidden rooms. These rooms are optional and can only be accessed whenever the player thinks constructively in order to access them. The rooms in question will not have the usual security camera filter on top of them, thus giving off the feeling that the player has entered an area in which even the person who trapped them in the level, does not know where they are. This was inspired by games like Portal in which the player can, in rooms, remove themselves from the normally pristine looking test chambers and enter places that contrast completely with the usual level presentation. The writer for Portal, Erik Polpaw, stated in the game’s commentary track that “…this room here for example shows hints that maybe other people are trapped in the facility.” The feeling of wonder achieved in Portal is exactly the type of tone I want to convey whenever the player enters one of these secret rooms, almost as if they are noclipping out of bounds and landing in areas where they know they do not belong.

Meaningful Encounters

Due to my biggest inspiration for my level being Resident Evil and the classic survival horror genre in general, I decided to adapt the formula somewhat in relation to combat. In popular survival horror games, the weapon of choice is always a firearm of some description. This, on paper, is an obvious choice due to how it requires a finite number of resources to use in the form of bullets. The player has to use each bullet carefully because when they run out of them, then they become defenceless against the variety of enemies that they encounter. For my own game, I have decided to use a singular weapon for combat in the form of a dagger. This dagger can be obtained at the start of the game and will make each combat encounter meaningful and tense. Whenever a firearm is used in other survival horror games, players can simply occupy a safe enough distance from enemies and fire bullets until they are dead. This type of combat can become very tiresome later in the game, especially as the difficulty ramps up, as the amount of enemies increases and the number of bullets decreases. Using a dagger with a much less limited range, forces players to get up close and personal with every enemy encounter. They will have to take risks whenever an enemy seems like they are open for a safe hit and can dodge back whenever an enemy has finished their cooldown. This can make enemy encounters much more tense in comparison. The lack of other resources necessary to use the only weapon in the game will make the game possibly less tense, but by making the combat more intimidating, it should line up well with how combat is employed in other survival horrors. The level design itself will also accommodate the placement of these enemies. It will ensure they are placed in such a way that the player will initially have plenty of room to experiment and get comfortable with the dagger. However, as the level goes on, rooms will become more claustrophobic and players will be required to take more risks than they normally would. This will be a good test of whether or not they have developed their skills with the dagger. There will only be one enemy type throughout the level, and it will not be as recurring as the player thinks. This is because I want each encounter with an enemy to feel unique. This may take the form of how they are positioned in a room, how lighting is reflected of them to warn the player of their location, or being used as a trap whenever the player interacts with certain objects.

Exploration

Resident Evil designers describe their games like Metroidvanias in an interview with Arthur Gies of Variety. The producer of Resident Evil 2 (2019), Tsuyoshi Kanda, stated that “…in the context of a horror game, it’s set in an area that you can really explore and backtrack through, Metroidvania style, and have an adventure in it.” In my previous modules, I also wrote in depth about this type of gameplay style and how I wanted the player to always feel like they were progressing towards a set goal and I had a visual way of showing it. The use of keys to open locked doors will be employed as a way of showing progression. In the starting room, the player will have four doors that they can interact with, however, only one of them will be initially unlocked. Since I want to follow the Metroidvania style and have the player do backtracking in combination with exploration, by having the central room in the game act as a mark of the player’s progress, it is vital in showing how knowledgeable, experienced, and powerful the player is in comparison to how they were at the start of the game. I want a reasonable proportion of the level to be optional to reward players who have a keen eye for secrets. I want the player to be joyful whenever they see a new peculiar looking door, as something new and exciting must be behind it. The game will be paced in such a way that each room will be more elaborate than the last, therefore housing more secrets, the potential for storytelling and tougher challenges throughout. Secret rooms will hide health upgrades and a more powerful dagger, physically showing that the player has come a long way from a lesser dagger and the small amount of health that they had at the start of the game. By ending the game with a series of harder enemy encounters, it will be much easier for those players that went out and explored the level thoroughly.

Controls

Before starting my blockout, I experimented with a blended approach for the transition between fixed and free form cameras. Since the game is meant to be played on a controller, using the default control scheme from the Third Person Template on Unreal will simply not be sufficient. While this default control scheme can be perfectly serviceable for games with a more traditional camera, using the scheme in fixed cameras proved to be frustrating. This is due to how the player moves between each camera transition. Going forward on a controller in one camera angle and then ending up going left in the angle that follows, can feel very unintuitive and difficult to control. Thus, I have made the decision to take inspiration from Resident Evil by using tank controls. The tank controls and fixed camera must work in perfect synergy with each other. If not, then controlling the game could prove disastrous. I must pay close attention to the number of cameras in a room, because by having too many, it can feel overly crowded due to the amount of transitions that are close together. This can lead the player to experience motion sickness and they can completely lose their sense of place within a shot. Also, these transitions cannot be jarring. The player must have a fair idea in mind of when a particular transition will happen and what it will focus on. I must conduct thorough testing on this throughout development, because it is important for me to realise that players who are new to the game will approach it in a completely different manner to myself and will have various styles of play and knowledge compared to me as the creator of the level. The player must never be out of view between transitions, as it could lead to the frustrating use of navigation on the player’s part. I need to treat these fixed angles as if they were real cameras. This many not always work in the service of gameplay, but it can make certain environments feel more grounded in realism, allowing the player to tackle a given situation in an easier way.

As for the tank controls themselves, I can understand why they can be very esoteric. They are more stilted and deliberate in comparison with a traditional control scheme, but it is a necessary evil when using fixed cameras. A lot of testing will be spent focusing on the precise level of turn speed required to ensure it feels as fluid as possible. Later additions to tank controls seen in games like Resident Evil 3 and 4, included the abilities to quick turn and to dodge so that it becomes easier to face enemies. These features will also be implemented in my game, while also allowing the player to turn slightly when moving themselves, so that it gives a boost to the game’s pace. Tank controls themselves are interesting and help service the gameplay in a way that establishes a sense of fear. Tension is always high when the player is at the mercy of the game’s controls, since movement is deliberate, therefore players will have to be cunning, yet careful, if they wish to survive. This is something that would not have the same effect, if the game chose a more modern experience in the controls’ department.