Shadow's Grove
Senior Year Student Team Project at DigiPen Institute of Technology
Roles: Level Designer, Systems Designer, Technical Designer, Gameplay Programmer, Tools Programmer, Narrative Content Designer, Producer.
Tools: Unreal Engine 5, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Figma, Subversion / Tortoise SVN.
Skills: White-Boxing, Environmental Storytelling, Combat System Design, Narrative Systems Design, Encounter Design, Blueprinting, Project Management, Agile, Scrum, Cinematics, Playtesting.
Genre: Third-Person, Action-Adventure Game with Third Person Shooter Elements.
Target Audience: Players driven to become immersed in the world they are exploring and put themselves in the shoes of the game protagonist.
Emergent Storytelling
On Shadow's Grove I focused on using Systems Design and Level Design practices to create storytelling opportunities directly through the gameplay. You can see below how I used Combat Design, Encounter Design, and Level Design to create storytelling opportunities throughout the game.
Combat Design
Characterization through Combat
Success by Iteration
Doing Combat Design on a game like Shadow's Grove, my goal was to design a system that could support the story, and serve the characterization of the two protagonist characters.
I was brought onto the game to iterate on an existing combat system, and notably to do so quickly as the game was beginning Post-Production. Largely a challenge of all of my work on Shadow's Grove was delivering quality content predominantly relying on existing resources (characters, enemies, animations, etc.).
My process began by studying the existing game content both by playing the game myself and conducting playtests. This helped me to thoroughly learn the game systems and to recognized where flaws in the system lie.
With these notes, I quickly organized my thoughts into a game design document, using my notes to arrive at a few different kinds of solutions to the problems found.
With these thoughts together, I then presented my ideas to our Creative Director, and we compromised on a series of designs for combat (as well as a few other game systems I designed).
Based on this, I collaborated with our tech lead to have the features implemented in the game, which I would then tune further with exposed variables and enemy behavior trees in response to regular playtesting.
I also gave regular input on animation decisions, and combat related VFX. While I wasn't responsible for UX and Game Feel, I did weigh in on decisions related to combat to help inform choices to best match my combat design intentions, sometimes even delivering direct concept thumbnails (which you can see an example of here).
Storytelling through Combat
From a narrative design perspective, characterizing the protagonists, and their relationship with each other was my primary goal.
The two characters have a dangerously codependent relationship with each other, so my combat design doesn't allow either character to succeed in combat individually. The only way to defeat enemies in combat is to use and switch between both characters.
This narrative element brought to life through combat then could be used strategically for crafting engaging gameplay and storytelling moments with the games encounter design.
Encounter Design
Exploring Reliance and Relationships when the going gets tough
Partners in Crime
Encounters were used to create engaging moments of gameplay and to deliver storytelling moments in a ludonarrative fashion. Building on the direction of the Combat System, the six Combat Encounters featured in the game each exist to serve a specific purpose.
My process for designing the encounters occurred alongside my level design, where based on narrative design documentation provided by our Creative Director, I designed and paced the content throughout the game. I iterated on the encounters based on player feedback and playtesting notes, but also to explore new opportunities for storytelling scenarios, especially to fill gaps where cutscenes or other storytelling plans were cut.
Before rescuing the second protagonist, the player isn't actually able to defeat enemies. They can knock them down, but they will always get back up.
So early encounters are designed around either moving past enemies while they are down, or forced losses.
Once the player has access to both protagonists, they can defeat enemies, but in order to do so, they will need to be within melee range.
Challenges like this one take advantage of this design by asking the player to temporarily down enemies from range, while they work towards reaching their actual location to finish the encounter.
Level Design
How Environmental Storytelling Creates a World Warped by Loss
First Steps in a New World
Shadow's Grove depicts a take on Norse Hel which explores the fantastical underworld rather than the frozen wastelands. I collaborated a great deal with our writer to figure out how to both bring this kind of space to life, but also how the player should feel in reaction to the space moment to moment.
My process for this begins with an analysis of the existing level designs which were in the game when I joined the team. All while doing this, I took notes to refer back to when I later got to create new levels for the game.
During this time, I was looking for Motifs and Memorable Moments, frequently flipping between the Unreal project itself and Narrative Design Documentation, trying get a grasp of how the story is told by and through out the level design, what works, what doesn't, and how it can be improved upon.
I was also looking for general level design problems, and determining what is a fault of the level design, and what is a fault of something else (and if it is something else, how can it most cost effectively be worked around if our development budget can't afford for it to be changed).
Most importantly, I was analyzing the level design to understand the game feel. How is the player meant to feel during different parts of the level, and how is the level design playing into those emotions?
My Pre-Production Work
With my notes together, I start working on my plans for designing new levels in the game.
For this project, the circumstances I did my level design under were actually a little unusual.
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My work was being done early in Post-Production
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Instead of a White-box approach, I tried to work with existing assets as much as I could to save time later.
Because of this, my priority was getting to a minimum viable product quickly to enable the art and audio teams to be able to polish the space as soon as possible.
Work in Progress Iterations
The Final Iteration
I designed the space to invoke a feeling of awe and wonder in the player, and presented the player with complete safety from threats while they get acclimated to their new setting.
The first room here is designed to not allow the player to move forward until they learn the game's main mechanic, throwing magic.
Past the door, the vista here faces the player's first objective, reaching the gate into the floating rock.
The lighting and God Ray here also point at this focal point, making it more eye catching.
Once in the cave environment, the tone shifts to invoke feelings of discomfort and uncertainty, while still breaking up the mood with moments of relief and awe around major landmarks the player will be circling back to.
In this specific area, the environment is framed to use the player character's companion as a landmark to guide the player forward.
Fun fact, this cutscene you see here is actually also made by me!
The player is always guided to lower elevations. This is done to reinforce the emotions and themes of the story.
An interesting note about this is anytime the player can or has to move to a higher elevation, it represents the player character ignoring the message of the game.
This subtly foreshadows the ending leaving the character in a worse state than they started in.
The architecture implies that enemies have made a home of this place and visually communicates spaces where the player can anticipate more combat. The gothic style also invokes feelings of history and intimidation.
Tents imply the presence of passing travelers through this space. Someone has been here before the player, but unlike the enemies, not in a permanent fashion.
This Hub area was the most iterated on portion of the level. Sight lines from the first of the objectives here, guide the player to the next objective.
I also created a camera system that will highlight progress and a starting camera angles once the player completes each objective. This helped me create scene compositions to start off the players return to gameplay.
This particle trail was also added to help with guidance around the Hub area during the player's first visit there.
Fun fact, this is actually a reused asset from an earlier version of the game, which made it a resourceful solution to the guidance problem we had here, since our time constraints prevented direct changes to the space itself.
A problem we has was the models for the objectives the player travels to during the main part of the game were fairly flat, and couldn't be seen from lower elevations. This is because the assets used were repurposed, and not originally intended to be seen from far away.
To solve for this, I collaborated with our VFX artists to create this beacon effect, that the player can see from all across the level.
One of the final objectives is hidden in plain sight by this statue, which points at a wall the player can throw magic at to reveal a hidden path.
If the player notices she is pointing to something on their own, then they can complete this objective early.
If not, the previously described camera system is used later in the level alongside some dialogue to bring it directly to the player's attention.
Challenges with our Boss Character
A scope challenge we faced was determining how we would foreshadow the boss enemy.
We intended to have the character involved in summoning enemies for encounters and seen moving about the space, but we unfortunately had to cut both ideas due to time constraints.
To still subtlety imply the presence of this character, I broke apart a great deal of the environment, with many chunks of rock now floating in slow animation.
This gives the implication that something had recently done this.
I also collaborated with the art team to have scratch marks in a few places to both guide the player and to imply that something large and dangerous had recently traversed the space.