Darkeness Of The Nightmares

Darkness Of The Nightmares

Project Dates: 28 September 2023- 8 January 2024
Project Status: Completed
Type Of Project: University Project
Purpose Of Project: To try to tell a story through mechanic and do some good narrative design and understand visual design principles in level design.
Responsibilities: Narrative designer, Game design, Blueprinting (I did no asset work for this project)

Light chasing away shadows

This light mechanic shows somebody conquering their fears. The matches idea came from an idea of limited resources with the fear of running out of it and light being used to chase away the monsters, fear of the dark and the monster can all be captured through the use of this one mechanic. I also had it so that you could light candles with the mechanic, creating sanctity and a place of refuge from the shadows

From this sketch, I made this blockout of the level using unreal's cube grid system to quickly get a blockout of the whole level. The player starts in the big room at the bottom made up of corridors. Then I got in all the basic mechanics those being: The match mechanic and the candles that you can light

Base Level Designs

This was the level sketch that I worked from to create the level. The black dot indicates the end of the level, something called the nightmare sphere and if you light a match near it you will destroy the nightmare sphere and end the level.

This allowed me to create a basic blockout to get all the mechanics prepared before introducing the rest of the assets.

Adding in the assets

After this point I started to build up the level with an asset pack that I found on the unreal marketplace that I used for most of the props. Then with the base layout done I moved on to going forward with specific room layouts

This is the first corridor where the player spawns I decided to have this be quite open. Also note how there are the ventilation system where each room is in the map, giving the player direction if they are lost.

The first room that the player can enter is this one, here I test to see if the players know if they can light the candles since the room is dark when you first approch it but you can light the candles if you have a match. The beds and bloodstains stand out and draw your attention close to where the first lever is indicating to the player that they should investigate this lever which will open the first gate.

To keep with variation I decided to make the surgical suite one of the biggest rooms in the game, it is also divided by a curtain and the wolf that hunts you has a more difficult path than before, following flow theory to keep the player enganged with the game. I also decided to guide the player with the rubble on the floor guiding the player across the room as well as the obstacles that block the player's path.

Adding in danger

Then for the next part I wanted to add a little bit of danger into the world so I introduced an enemy that will attack the players if they get too close, in the next 2 rooms I provided a contrast, they are purely dark and there are no candles in them forcing the player to use their matches to see where they are in the world. Though the adjacent corridor allows you to retreat if you are overwhelmed by the beast since it is affected by light giving you chance to run away from it. If you light the candles it makes it a lot easier to escape the beast

I decided to have a sense of calm in the records room, it's not got any bloodstains in it unlike every other room so it contrasts nicely with all of the other rooms in the game. It's also got a sense of direction in the room since both the filing cabinets and the desk in the corner point to the lever to remove another gate from the level

Wrapping up the level

The final room is where the centre of the nightmare is: Where the nightmare sphere resides. I decided to make it a calm room with the nightmare sphere clearly on display with a flashy particle effect. All the player has to do is to light a match near to the sphere and it will eventually disappear and the game will end. I lined up all the chairs to more or less face the sphere to guide the player's gaze there if they end up missing it. With the chairs one of them is knocked down for good variation to make it looks more visually interesting it also has some blood splatter on it I think this is an appropriate end to the level since there was a moment of high tension before that so it ends on a peaceful note.

Through working on this project it helped me realise the importance of good asset layout since a lot can be shown through asset use, like where the player should be looking and how to guide their gaze using principles like direction. I also learnt why variation and contrast are important and I look forward to doing another project like this in the future

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