Game Design
General Game Concept
The base concepts were guided by the theme predetermined by the team. To create the claustrophobic feeling of a maze, we seeked a gameplay that could make the player feel engulfed by the environment. That led us to the first person view, in a dark and narrow place, with tall walls. In a similar thought, looking for a "better be cautious" feeling, a tile based movement set did the trick, as you are consciously commanding every step you take ♪.
One of our main references was Gloomgrave (2022), by Netmancer.
Player Functions
One of the focuses of the game was to make it accessible for multiple people, not just being objective and straightforward, but also playable by PwDs. Minding that, we split the exploration aspect into two functions:
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The Guide
A player who instructs the other one.
By having access to shuffled maps and time-limited views of the explorer's camera, but with full visibility. This function doens't require high agility or multiple controls, only shifting between the resources.
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The Explorer
A player who moves through the maze.
The map has basically no visibility, therefore, doesn't require good sights or, potentially, no sights at all. The limits of tile based movements also help with directions to be followed as you can count exactly how much you've walked.
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This combination allowed us to build a communication based game, encouraging a cooperative behavior.
game flow early diagram
Art by Juliana Craveiro
Art by Juliana Craveiro
Monsters/Obstacles
As the game tells a story about a station abandoned for unknown reasons, the obstacles are the perfect elements to reflect this. The maze itself was the game focus, so our "monsters" were designed as obstacles aiming for player deceiving and delaying with a sinister thematic twist. After very long brainstorming processes, with scope and engine application in mind, our final concepts were simple to implement in the level design, using them as traps. This was one of the most fun creative bits of the project, as we had to design them considering that they are only visible to the explorer, therefore mixing up communication and indications from the guide.
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The Fog
A whispering wall that blocks the path of the explorer. As it's not shown in the guide's maps, it's mainly used to trick the communication and stimulate exploration of alternative routes.
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The being in the corner [Cut from final version]
A small creature that gives directions, through audio and pointing. Either left or right, if you look at the direction pointed by it, the game input controls are inverted, causing confusion. If the player looks in the opposite direction, the creature is defeated, dissipating.
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The ducts thing [Cut from final version]
This one needed duct assets to exist around the game.
Some ducts, signalized by sound would spawn the creature. It would kidnap the player to a separate room, like a pocket dungeon concept. The room is supposed to be an even deeper layer of the station, as if following the ducts.
There were a few puzzle ideas for this. One of the main ideas was that the right path to leave would be signalized through multiple maps, as a second layer, and the key would be using these specific two layered maps as a jigsaw puzzle to get the correct order.
Room3 level concept
Exit2 level concept
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The pink numbers are the monsters, 1 the fog and 2 the corner thing;
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the red squares are the new walls, those don't appear in the guide's map;
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Different keys for each of the 2 starts.
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These concepts were edited a few times before implementation and changed inside the engine. They don't reflect the exact final in game result.
Map/Levels
Luca came up with a very clever level sequence with 6 levels and 2 start points and I was in charge of designing 3 of those levels, sketching on paper and figma.
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In general, exploring the narrow spaces and dark environment were the core guides here, but looking at mazes, for me the usual complexity lies in having many paths that look possible, but are filled with traps and dead ends. So that's what I tried to do. The interesting thing here is that it must feel tricky for both the explorer and the guide. And there was one core resource that divided them. The monsters.
So, the maps were generally puzzling from the perspective of someone who is inside the maze, but also from the perspective of someone who is outside, yet unsure about witch parts of the maps are inaccurate. Super fun.
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The one different level was the train platform. It's the "middle" level, so it was supposed to feel like you've reached the lower, larger and possibly most dangerous part of the station, in order for the previous one to feel like you are diving into that and the following to feel like you are getting out of it.
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So I filled it with monsters, to give a more dynamic moment and added in a new obstacle: new walls that are not in the guide's map. The structure was abandoned a long time ago after all, it makes sense that things break or the maps are outdated. Except, this is the only level with these, so it should be extra tricky in the first few times. I also thought of unlocking doors by picking up keys to go further, but we didn't have the time to implement it.
Platform level concept
Engine Implementation
Room3 built in Unity
After designing the levels I was in charge of building most of their base wall structure, with an engine mesh tool that used editable cubes to build an entire layout in a single engine object. Tile based, as our game levels were built into a tile grid for player movement and to make sure the level itself would not clash with the player experience.
I built 4 levels in total, of those 3 designs were made by me and 1 other by Salgado.
Basically, the ultimate test of my Minecraft experience.