Trailer footage
Summary: In a land of magic and fantasy, the residents of a kingdom are hunted by creatures lurking within the shadows. The people that fall victim to the creatures will become blighted. “Those that become blighted shall have their freedom robbed for all eternity”. You play as the princess of the kingdom, attempting to save the people in distraught while trying to figure out why the princess shadow have a will of her own and the sudden changes of the Queen. Will she able to uncover the mystery lies within the kingdom? There's only one way of finding out!
Level Design Contribution
Level Tutorial Layout (Top down view 3d view)
Level Tutorial Layout (Shadow realm)
Final Layout of first part of Tutorial Level (2d+3d realm)
Thought process: When designing the tutorial of the game, the prop placement is design with the thought that player will try to interact anything within the room. Since this is a beginning of the game the puzzles are relatively straightforward for player to get use with the controls and interactable props. Secondly, the shadow hand is an obstacles that the player will face through out the game. By placing at the start and blocking the way and dissapear would make player wary of them.
Cleared puzzle of the first part of Tutorial Level (2d+3d realm)
Final layout of second half of the tutorial level (2d+3d)
Shadow hand moving the chandelier at the tutorial level
When coming into the second half of the game, player can see the challenge has risen with introduction of shadow can serve as helping 2D alice to get through obstacles by baiting them and movable props. This provides information that players have to lure some shadows depending on their animation or reposition themselves when in 2d Alice in order to overcome the obstacles
Ununsed Level Design Sketches
Level 1- Queen Bedroom (Top down view)
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Level 1- Queen Bedroom (Shadow Realm)
Level 1- Queen Bedroom First Half in game engine screenshot
Level 1- Queen Bedroom Second Half in game engine screenshot
Thought process: Since the goal of the level is to uncover the diary that thee queen (antagonist) is keeping, there will be blights (enemies) within the level to guard the place even more cautious and normal mechanics can't progress the level. This is where I start introduced new level mechanic (Big lights to temporary cover up the shadows) that belongs to get player feeling fresh on learning something new while retainign the core mechanics of the game.
Narrative Contribution
Thought process on coming out with narrative direction for the game:
My inital thought at first is how can we ensure the Blights appearance is normal within the game, we did some research and find out that the uses of magic can be found during medieval period and therefore we went for that direction.
As for why I made Alice as a kid is that I think a kid is usually naive and adventurous human being that is not being pressured by society to do things, therefore when something odd happening to her mother, the queen and the shadow mysterious appearance, her instict is to learn new things that sparks her interest rather than staying in one place.
Finally, the reason we made the queen as the antagonist of the game is to further reinforce that the queen and alice relationship previously is very good and to cause her having such drastic change of behavior ignites the curiosity for Alice to take on this adventure with the mysterious shadow.
1. Level Design for both shadow realm & 3d realm
When coming out with ideas on how to design both 2d and 3d realm at the same time, I struggle a lot as this is the first time I'm task with designing a level with no prior knowledge.
Therefore, I look up to actual medieval castle room designs in hope to get some insipration on how props are being placed. After that I look up to some game references on how they design games that have different paths and mechanics within a level like Shady Part of Me.
After grasping on how other games do it, I first implement the props within the 3d realms first in order to see how natural the placement of the props are. Only then readjusting the props in order for the shadow character to overcome their respective realm's obstacles and repeat the process until the level is complete
My biggest takeaway from this is that setdressing for a level is vital as during development, one of my teammates actually pointed out that it looks unnatural in some of the props placement which therefore help me understand level design isn't just about creating a level for player to overcome the obstacles but also to ensure the realism in the game did not get distracted.