This is a solo project to develop a sort of Amnesia: The Bunker in space, the goal was to create a tense frantic experience while players avoided a monster while doing light puzzle solving

Game Design

The Monster

The monster is the star of the show, navigating around the level for the player to avoid. The level uses creative use of scripted teleporters to keep the monster close at all times, I wanted the monster to be a constant threat and never have the player in a position where they arent worrying about it for too long. the intended aesthetics are mainly fear and anxiety as they avoid it while solving puzzles.  The player is alerted when the monster is near as I wanted the player to know they are in danger but still be surprised by it, this also lends into the aesthetics I mentioned earlier. It adds to the tense feeling I was going for, knowing the monster is around without knowing exactly where it is, this creates some interesting dynamics by letting the player know the monster is near but not exactly where, letting it sneak up on the player.

The Player

The player has a few ways of avoiding the monster, they can crawl to hide from the monster and later they get a gun that can slow down the monster.  I wanted to make sure the player wasn't completely defenseless against the monster without just letting them kill it. I wanted the mechanics to allow the player to slow down the monster gives them the ability to make a quick get away and crawling helps them avoid getting caught.

Puzzles

The puzzles are not difficult, but as the game progresses, the player is forced to act in closer proximity to the monster to make for a more stressful experience. And makes for exciting gameplay. The puzzles mostly fill the roll of aiding the aesthetics and dynamics I was trying to craft.

Level Design

Details

Act 1

This acts as the slow open, there's a lot of open space that makes the monster easy to avoid and the puzzles are low stakes. The monster is spawned in when the player exits the locker room which triggers a flash of alerts to show the player what it looks like when the monster is near in a safe environment.  From there, the player is able to keep a safe distance from the monster, letting get used to the presence of the monster without directly engaging with it.

Act 2

The second act puts the player in tighter spaces with a looping level design to make sure the player doesn't get trapped, the goal was to have the player run around the monster while solving puzzles. The monster is teleported when the player enters the tool room to give the impression that the monster is “following” the player to the lower level. 

Act 3

The final act is short, but is built around the main puzzle of the airlock tunnel that forces the player to directly engage with the monster. The monster is teleported into the waiting room when the airlock button is first engaged to prevent forcing the player to lure the monster for too long, this would of gotten rid of some of the tension I wanted to have. 

Process

The first thing I did after coming up with the idea was to look up some ideas of spaceship interiors and took a look at what Amnesia: The Bunker was doing. My scope was a bit more linear than The Bunker but ir was a good reference point.

Based on these I drew the level layouts, after I started a design document, I wanted three distinct areas that would have their own separate levels with different feels. I first designed the game play on paper.

I first set up the basic gameplay elements and the monster. I wanted the monster to be a constant threat to the player, always wandering around looking for them. 

I made it so that the player sees hallucinations based on how close they are to the monster so that they are always aware of where it is. I think that makes the monster scarier and also giving the player some visual information about how close the monster is without fully giving away its location, which instills a sense of panic that I was going for. 

I made the map in sections, starting with Act 1, consisting of the middle floor of the spaceship, an important aspect of each map was loops, I wanted to make sure there would never be an instance where the player was cornered or trapped by the monster, making sure there was always a way out or enough space to out maneuver it. I also wrote down the puzzles I wanted to have in each room, working in chronological order. After this I prototyped each puzzle to make sure I could get it working. Finally I made a white box of each room and filed each room with clutter and added the puzzles

I repeated these steps with Act 2 and Act 3

I then added lights to the scene 

After testing, and made sure I could play through it, and then with everything working, I replaced the white boxes with grey boxes, tightening up the level, making sure everything had better, more uniform scaling and got prepared for its final design. The final thing I did was swap out the monster placeholder for a model I found on fab.