BLUE

SPECIFICATIONS

ROLE

Level Design

GAME ENGINE

Unreal Engine 5.3.2

TEAM SIZE

Solo project

TIME FRAME

4 Weeks

DESCRIPTION

Explore eerie environments to find the truth behind the destruction of an entire city.

YEAR

2025 - Ongoing

GENRE

Sci-Fi, Thriller, Walking simulator

PLAYER MODES

Single-player

PUBLISHED ON

Coming to itch.io

CONCEPT

CONTRIBUTION

REFLECTION

CONCEPT

Core Game Mechanic

Blue is an interactive walking simulator where you try to figure out the story with the help of environmental clues.

The core mechanics are movement, zoom and simple interactions.

CONTRIBUTION

Biggest Contribution

Blockouts
implementation

Set dressing
Environmental Storytelling

Player path
Pacing

The House

Goal

Convey a cozy and safe first impression that slowly grows eeri.

Onboard the player controls.

Tell the story of how the person who lived here was being watched and lied to.

Introduce the guiding blue handprint.

Blockouts

Problems with the old blockout:

Didn't feel very cozy.
The layout felt random and confusing. The flow wasn't very nice.
Too many inaccessible paths that felt like they should be accessible.

Solutions:

Instead of working with 4x4m walls, I made a custom 2x2m wall piece and made the house smaller.
I simplified the layout and focused on an open floor plan.
The rooms that are inaccessible do not stick out into the level which makes the doors less interesting.

House

Player path & Pacing

Starting area is simple and only has one progressive path.

Important clues are placed in the most attention grabbing spots while less important clues work as filler to keep the rest of the area interesting.

I decided to keep the bedroom and the bathroom closed as they didn't add any additional value to the experience. Everything I wanted to say fit nicely into the main space.

Environmental storytelling

The house tells the story of a person slowly finding out that they've been watched and lied to. This person seems to know that we are coming so they leave us a trail to follow.

The Basement

Goal

Convey a dark and cold atmosphere with a hint of mystery.

Tell the story of how the person living in the house escaped.

Teach the player that the blue handprint leads the way.

Blockouts

Problems with the old blockout:

The space was too big causing the traversal to feel too dragged out and uneventful.
The space under the stairs turned out too small, making it less useful and interesting.

Solutions:

Making the main space smaller made it feel easier to traverse.
As the space was made smaller, the architecture of the stairs could also change, allowing for a larger more interesting area under them.

Basement

Player path & Pacing

There isn't much of the story to tell in this area and it's mostly a transition space so I kept it simple.

To make this simple area interesting, I utilised the spaces under the stairs for clues and the escape route.

Environmental storytelling

The basement tells the story of how the person kept in this house escaped. They dug their way out and continued to leave a trail for us to follow.

The Tunnel

Goal

Create a sense of claustrophobia and uncertainty.

Slightly disorient the player for a more impactful reveal of the desert.

Transition space between the house and the desert.

Tunnel

Blockouts

Problems with the old blockout:

While constant turning left and right did disorient the player it didn't build up for the desert reveal well enough.

Solutions:

Continuously going downwards was more effective for the desert reveal. It made the player expect the opposite of what was going to happen.
More players said that it was uncomfortable to continuously go downwards.

Player path & Pacing

The tunnel currently only has one path but I'm considering adding a few dead ends so that the player has to follow the handprints to make it out.

Environmental storytelling

The tunnel is the imprisoned persons self-made way out. It is a transition space that was created to amplify the impact of the coming vistapoint. It disorients the player to divert their expectations.

The Desert

Goal

Make the player feel small and lonely.

Tell the story of the city that once stood there.

Communicate the devastation and the tragedy of so many losing their lives.

Make the desertification look man-made

Blockouts

Problems with the old blockout:

The desert and the mountain were too big. The player had to walk over 50m before interacting with anything.

Solutions

All the ruins are quickly accessible which makes them less of a hassle to explore.

Desert

Player path & Pacing

I made the desert compact so that it wouldn't take too long to go through it.

I tried to give the player things to look at and interact with to keep the walk interesting.

I kept the goal clear and visible from the start to avoid an area as big as this to feel overwhelming and confusing.

Environmental storytelling

The desert focuses on the story of the city that was destroyed. Each ruin has hints to what kind of a building it used to be and what kind of people used to live there. It's not important to the main mystery and mostly contributes to world building.

Goal

Play with player expectations of what a facility looks like.

Create a cozy space to contrast the mass murder.

Tell the story of what caused the city's destruction, what happened to the researchers and why the player is there.

Facility

The Facility

Blockouts

Problems with the old blockout:

It had too many rooms to explore
There were too many paths to take.
From a realism stand point it was breaking security and safety protocols that would allow for contamination and intruders.

Solutions:

I made each laboratory bigger by combining rooms.
I removed some doors and made the player path and bonus paths fewer and clearer.
I created a new layout that keeps lab coats and regularly clothed researchers separate and I put all the entrances behind the reception.

Player path & Pacing

I placed a storytelling element in every room to keep the area interactive.

I chose a simple layout with only two diverging paths and marked the main path with blue handprints while making the optional path short and easy to come back from.

I used glass walls for realism and to let the player explore without giving them too many rooms to go through.

Story elements in rooms the player is less likely to visit do not contain any important clues to the main story, just world building.

Environmental storytelling

The facility tells the story of how a group of researchers accidentally destroyed a city while developing a tool for the government, but after their failure they were all assassinated to cover up the government's involvement. In the testing zone we find our own body with a USB drive and a message revealing that our goal is to move information between timelines to save the city.

REFLECTION

This project is the first project I've ever gotten to spend 4 weeks focusing on level design solely, and it has probably been one of the most educational experiences I've ever had.

I learned a lot about creating my own, very simple textures, how to manipulate colours of textures, how to set up different types of materials and how to create decals. I didn't know a lot about textures, materials or decals before this, so I'm really glad I got to sit down and explore them this time.

I also got to explore the import settings of assets more as Fab always gave me a wide variety of oddly scaled, broken textured fun.

My biggest regret for this project is the in engine implementation of the blockouts. I had to work with a very basic architectural starter pack and nothing felt right for the type of level I was trying to make. I partially solved this challenge by creating my own custom walls, but I couldn't create a lot of them as I was very pressed for time. I ended up turning to bad practice by re-scaling and crossing assets, causing the end result to look sloppy. There is light leaking in between walls, sometimes you can see the seams, the metrics are slightly off and things are not perfectly symmetrical.

Although I wish I could say I figured out how to deal with this type of challenge in the end, I'm still on a journey to figure it out.

In the end, I'm proud of what I accomplished, and I will continue to try to grow with every project I work on!