Zolaris New | Nix Narrative

Unreal Crypt Final Pass 3_edited_edited.jpg

LEVELS

ZOLARIS

SOFTWARE:

Unreal Engine 4 | Blueprints | Maya

INSPIRATION:

1st person stealth | RPG | Fallout | Bioshock | Dishonored

JOB TITLE:

Creative Director | Lead Level Designer

TEAM SIZE: 13

DURATION: 1 Year

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Zolaris is a first-person stealth game about Valeria, a spirit medium bounty hunter, trying to escape a cathedral crawling with murderous cultists. The player must use their abilities to defeat the cultists in order to escape their capture.

In Zolaris there are 7 different maps around the Cathedral - The Crypt, Library, Worship Hall and Garden.

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NARRATIVE

I recorded, edited, and implemented the dialogue for the game. I created an immersive experience where the dialogue was functional, guided the player, and felt natural. This experience included text in the game HUD, audio files that correspond with the text, and the audio trigger system to play specific dialogue at the right point within the game.

DIALOGUE SYSTEMS

- I made dialogue systems that played when players interacted with objects and when players explored certain parts of the map.

- I created an audio system that kept track of previously used dialogue and the currently playing dialogue to ensure dialogue wouldn't overlap.

- Finally, I created an NPC system that would change dialogue depending on which missions the player had completed. This system also allowed the player to skip through dialog by pressing "X" without overlapping.

DIALOGUE SYSTEMS

I built dialogue systems that played when players interacted with objects and explored certain parts of the map.
I created an audio system that tracked previously used and currently playing dialogue to ensure dialogue wouldn't overlap.
Finally, I created an NPC system that would change dialogue depending on which missions the player had completed. This system also allowed the player to skip through dialogue by pressing "X" without overlapping.

On The Zolaris Project, I also worked on multiple blueprints and systems to enhance the player experience and gameplay. These Blueprints included: Interactive Systems, Guiding Systems, Dynamic and Emissive Textures, and Dialog/Audio Systems. Below I outline in detail my thought process when making these functions.

FUNCTIONALITY

GUIDING SYSTEMS

Within the Crypt Owl, I was responsible for creating guiding systems to help them navigate the maze as well as creating the system that would reset the player at the beginning of the maze if they took the wrong turn. I accomplished this by creating trigger boxes in between columns the player needed to pass through.

The trigger boxes leading to the correct path would light 2 new torches for the player, symbolizing 2 new pathways they could go down. Sometimes these trigger boxes lit colored torches as well. The color of the torch in front of the player would symbolize which path they should transverse.

The trigger boxes leading to the incorrect path were less complicated. If the player collided with them, the player's screen slowly faded to white to symbolizing the fog around them becoming thicker. After 2 seconds the fog faded away and the player found themselves back at the beginning of the maze.

ETHEREAL SYSTEMS

I also worked on Ethereal Objects throughout the game. These objects worked together with the player's ability called Etherealness. When the player used this ability, they could move through specific objects on the map or even hide within them to stealth and avoid capture.

To accomplish this, I cast the Ethereal blueprint to the player character to check when the player was using Etherealness. Then, in the blueprint, I duplicated the object and turned off the collisions on the duplicate. I added the ethereal texture to the duplicate and set its visibility to off. Finally, when the player activated Etherealness, it would trigger an event on the Ethereal object, causing the original object to become invisible and the duplicate to become visible.

The player could pass through the object and hide within it. When their Etherealness ability finishes, the collisions on the ethereal object would return to normal.

EMISIVE BLUE PRINT

These Emissive Blueprints I created were to give players visible feedback on their actions and improve the overall game feel. When a player interacts with an object, it will react by slowly illuminating a timeline. Another version of this feedback is when a player switches their abilities. The crystals on the character's gloves will respond and change colour to match the ability they have selected.

The major obstacle I encountered was getting the emissive to change during gameplay since Unreal emissives are baked at the start of gameplay. I was able to bypass this problem by making a dynamic material that could be accessed in the Blueprint coded.

INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS

At the beginning of the project, I was responsible for creating an interactive blueprint that would serve as the parent of all interactive objects in the game. This interactive system had to work in tandem with our reload, which was on the same button, and ensure the right prompt appeared when the player was within range of an interactive object.

I accomplished this by creating a hit box around the player that collides specifically with a hit box made for interactive objects. When the player's hitbox overlaps with the interactive object, a prompt is presented, and pressing "X" to interact is prioritized over reloading.

LEVELS

I wanted the player to choose how they wanted to play the game between stealth and combat - The Owl and The Bear.

The Owl's path prioritized Stealth and the Bear's path prioritized combat.

GAMEPLAY

The Crypt is a sacrificing sanctum for the cultist which serves as one of the challenge areas. There is a Bear and Owl version of this level. For the Owl's path, I wanted to break away from the traditional stealth route that incorporates narrative into the mini-challenges for the players requiring them to use their stealth and problem-solving to succeed.

CRITICAL PATH & MAPS

To navigate through the correct path of the crypt maze, the player must problem-solve with small context clues guiding them throughout the maze such as turned torches, obstructions on the floor and different colored torches.

Next, the player uses stealth to complete their task of saving 2 victims from the cultist sacrifice without being compromised. The player has a variety of ways to approach this task by using various ethereal objects to their advance, move through or hide in certain areas, as well as access to multiple entrances into the sacrifices' cell.

MAZE

CRYPT CONSTRUCTION

This white box illustrates the maze's placement and structure.
If the player continued down the wrong path, they would be teleported back to the beginning of the maze.
After finalizing the map design, the construction was much easier. I focused mostly on the maze at first, getting it white-boxed and functional. When players go down the wrong path, they are teleported back to the beginning of the maze to try again. Once the maze was working as intended, I focused on constructing the bottom two floors of the crypt, ensuring there were enough props for the player to hide and sneak behind.

GAMEPLAY

The Library is a source of knowledge within the game and serves as one of the challenge areas for the player.
I mapped out, constructed, and implemented the "Owl Route" for the library.
The Owl route mainly focuses on stealth and using player mechanics to evade and take down enemies without being seen.
I focused on these concepts by providing narrow pathways to allow the player to hide or get the jump on enemies before being seen.

CRITICAL PATH & MAPS

For the Owl Path, I wanted to use bookshelves not only to fit the library theme but also to give the player cover from enemies.
Up on the top floor, I place bookshelves in positions to allow the player to pear around corners at unsuspecting enemies.
On the bottom floor, bookshelves are placed similarly but there are more pathways the player can choose to reach their end goal.
Depending on the enemy patrol path players may go on the right left or through the middle to succeed

CONSTRUCTION

After finishing the map layout, I jump straight into the white boxing stage. I made the white box in Maya because I felt that it gave me more control over the library's construction. Once the basic white box is completed I imported it into unreal and put a coordinate texture on it. That way to insure are incoming assets were scaled properly.

As soon as I started receiving assets I began set dressing and game testing the feel of the level. Some changes were needed, placements of pillars and the construction of archways but after that, I moved to lighting the scene.

At first I wanted there to be an abundance of natural moonlight in the scene but I opted to change it because I felt it took away from eerie abeyance of the scene the. To compensate for the lost light, we added a few flickering torchlights

GAMEPLAY

The Worship Hall is a recurring area within the game where the player returns to upgrade their abilities and gain new power-ups.
When designing this location, the area was made dangerous for the player to navigate through, so they would have to be cautious in their progress.
The players could go fully offensive, but there are also tools around the map, such as waterways, pillars, flammable pyres, and benches, that they can use for stealth.

FINAL PASS

The Garden is the centre of the church and the player's main hub.
When designing this, I wanted the player to have options for how to proceed through their different challenges while also under constant threat from the enemy.
My main role for the garden was lighting to present the scene in an eerie nighttime atmosphere.
This was to ensure the player was always on their toes, to provide locations they can hide and stay out of sight from other cultists, and to keep the theme of our cultist horror aesthetic.

CRITICAL PATH & MAPS

The Map layout for the garden was designed in a hub-like style so that the player could run through this space multiple times in one play-through.
Along the edges of the garden, there are stone pillars and ledges that can be used to obstruct the view of enemy cultists.
There are also flowing waterways that intentionally connect from the garden to the Worship hall .
This allows players to choose how they want to stealth around both levels

LIGHTING EFFECTS

When lighting this space, I wanted to focus on the eerie atmosphere to most effectively encapsulate the player's interest; however, I ran into a few difficulties when trying to portray low light.
Mainly, the shadows in some spaces were entirely too powerful.
To resolve this issue, I added an exponential fog to cover the world and increased our skylight sensitivity to soften the show's darkness.
Once that was done, in the post process, I lightened the color of the shadows so they fit the aesthetic and atmosphere