Plague Ridden
Synopsis
Tending to the sick outside of the convent, one day everything turns upside down. The sick are turned and attack, massacring those tending to them. Those who survive with wounds shortly end up like the sick. Turned.
Managing to hide, you survive the ordeal. You muster up the courage and make your way toward the convent in hopes of finding someone who knows what's going on...
A first person horror experience.
Level breakdown
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Solo project spanning 5 weeks half-time (4 hours/day)
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Focus on level design and storytelling
Engine
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Unreal Engine 5
Assets Used
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Blockout Tools Plugin v 1.52
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Ultra Dynamic sky & weather
1. Full reveal the cathedral. Subverts expectations when the player sees that the bridge is destroyed.
2. Viewpoint over the area. Introduces the enemies and how the hiding functions.
The player gets into the dormatory, a bit of respite.
3. The dormatory has acted as a funnel. A reveal over the cathedral and courtyard. focus on getting into the cathedral.
4. The doors fling open and enemies spill out of the cathedral. The enemies start to chase the player into the crypts.
5. Arriving to the crypts the doors close behind the player. It is a oneway. The crypts house the former bishop that has now been turned. The player has to get by them. Doing so reveals that something sinister has been going on beneath the cathedral.
6. The player comes up from the crypts into the cathedral. It's overrun. The player has to get up on the still burning chandelier and destroy the turned. Luring the remaining enemies in through the organ, the player gets to the chandelies and makes it fall down setting everything ablaze.
7. Falling down, the player runs out and witness the destruction of the cathedral.
Tension Graph
Dormitory
The dormitory introduces the enemies and how the hiding mechanic works. There are multiple ways through, some safer and some more dangerous.
It was important to me that the player would see the enemies patrol from the get-go so they would be able to plan ahead.
Crypts
The crypt area is quite short but is filled with story elements. After the chase in the cathedral courtyard the crypt gives the player a bit of rest before the end of the level. That does not mean the crypts is completely without danger. In them you discover that nothing is as it seems. The turned bishop and a laboratory can be found.
Cathedral
In this level the cathedral is the hero piece. I wanted the cathedral to be repeatedly visible throughout the level and establish it as the end goal. An important thing for me designing this cathedral was to make it feel lifelike. To achieve that I referenced Carlisle Cathedral in England.
The cathedral Is the crescendo of the level. After what the player has seen the conclusion is to make the turned flock into the cathedral and then burn it down, with them in it.
To make the cathedral stand out more from the rest of the level, it has multiple levels that you go through. The last one bringing the player to the back down to the first level again.
Design Techniques
Prospect and refuge
At the beginning of the level The player has a lot of cover and ways to avoid the enemies. During the playtime the covers get less frequent and makes the player move more.
180 Degree turn
When the player is focused on what's in front of them they won't look behind them. As a reward for getting to the organ we turn the player 180 degrees and show the cathedral hall.
Foreshadowing
I establish that the Cathedral is the long term goal from the start. I use it as a landmark during the level.
Show don't tell
I wanted to lay some tidbits of lore in the level, just so the player would think of why people turned. Was it a coincident or was it the church that caused it?
Guiding the player
Through the level I use framing and leading lines to show the player where to go. This combined with light makes an effective tool.
In a way my hiding spots act like a framing device. I use them not just as a way to get away from enemies but also to frame where the the player could go.
Preproduction
Preproduction was an important step in this piece.
I started with brainstorming what I wanted for the theme and made a synopsis for each one of them. From that I decided on one.
After the theme and setting I began making the level beats and prologue. After discussions with my educators I cut down a lot of the content I had planned. The setting changed from a bustling city to a secluded convent. The majority of the core level beats was repurposed and can be seen in the final piece.
With iterations of the level beats and the setting done. I began researching cathedrals. I looked at how and when they were built and their design. Due to that I wanted my piece to be manageable, I noticed that a majority of the cathedrals I looked at was quite grand. In the end I based my design on on Carlisle Cathedral.
While I designed my cathedral, I looked into a new environment for it. That is when I stumbled upon Tatev Monastery in Armenia, a secluded place in the mountains. I took inspiration from it for my piece.
Workflow
After the preproduction I started working on my level
The Cathedral. It was one of the first things I started with. By following dimensions that existed I could make the design consisted. What I had problems with during the process was the inside. It was hard to translate real life measurements to something playable in a level.
With the different areas I first sketched out what they should have in them and built it in the level. I checked if it worked and iterated accordingly.
The crypts I had to shorten down a bit because after playtesting I realized they were to long. By doing this I had to move the placement of the upper part, which scared me because I thought the placement would look "stiff" or "to linear" above ground.
During the work process one of the many things I changed was the scale of the level. Because of good structure with folders I could easily move the buildings and redesign what I've made.
Reflection
Plague Ridden was a really fun project and is something I feel I can develop further on in the future. I think that me being able to look at dimension and blueprints from real life and design from that was a giving experience and a challenge. The challenge being able to make it playable and logical.
Because of early playtesting and feedback from my classmates and teachers I could early on spot things that would become bothersome later on and fix them.