Visitor - A short, narrative game where you investigate an empty village.

Overview

You have arrived at the village of Burton at an unfortunate time.
Shortly after arriving, you realise the village is empty.
As you wander throughout Burton, you soon discover what happened to its residents.

Platform

• Windows

Engine

• Unity

Software

• Photoshop

• Substance Painter

• Maya

Download HERE

Game Play Video

Detailed Info

Level Layout

Production Details

This was originally a school project which I worked on for 7 weeks.
The goal was to create a narrative game which told a story mainly through environment storytelling.
This was the first unit where I was able to use all the skills I have learnt throughout the year in a single project.
After submission, I decided to keep working on this project as I felt it had a lot more that I could build upon.

Framing the shadow creature

Near the end of the 7 weeks, I had finally got everything working together that triggered the shadow creature reveal as you exit the house.
After having a few people play test for me, it revealed that it was very easy to miss the reveal.
80% of play testers failed to see the flashy moment that I had spent so much time setting up.
I knew I needed to frame the shot better, as players would look to the right or left when coming out the back of the house.
I ended up leaving the door opened on the right side of the doorway, while placing boxes and barrels on the left to frame the spot the creature was at.

Guiding the player

Probably the issue that took the longest to fix was guiding the player through the house.
This issue did not come up during testing.
I think this was because all the testers were students in my class who have played many games before and also knew my level layout, so they knew there was a back door in the house.
This first started when I had some artists from the other class play my game and I noticed they would walk into the house, look around a bit, turn around and walk back into the street.
Firstly I tried lighting the room up, but it did not help that much.
I re-positioned the objects in the room a little bit, but it was still an issue.
I then added the blood smear and claw marks on the ground to try and guide the player.
However, shortly after this I exhibited my game at PAX and had hundreds of people play my game, and a large amount of them would fail to notice the door at the back of the house.
One person suggested such a simple fix that easily solved the problem - just close the door behind the player when they walk inside.

Interactive Objects

I submitted this game to the GCAP Student Showcase.
While I was not successful in getting chosen to show my game at GCAP, I did get some amazing feedback from industry professionals.
One piece of feedback I was given was that I should add interactive objects to the game to help tell the story and make the game more engaging.
I decided to add some notes that the player could read, to try and give the player a bit of an idea of who lived at the house and what had happened to everyone.
I made a simple animation of the paper opening when you pick it up, as a bit of animation can give a lot of life to anything.
I also created a glowing shader to help highlight the note for the players and ensure they knew it was interactive.
When I showed the game at PAX, one thing I realised was that 99% of the people who played tried to pick up the sword on the ground.
Because of this, I decided to make the sword interactive as well, and I created a hand icon to easily let people know what they could pick up.

Environmental Story Telling

The project this game was originally made for was a Narrative unit. The main goal being to tell a story through the environment.
Level design is the area that I want to work in, so I was excited for this unit.
My teacher recommended that I play “What remains of Edith Finch”, and this game made me realise just how important all the props are in a game to help give the player an idea of the story.
I immediately got to work creating the models in Maya.
I knew I wanted to create a game based in medieval times as medieval fantasy is my favourite theme for a game.
The story I wrote for this game was about the blacksmith digging too deep into the mine and releasing these shadow creatures.
By the end of the project though, I had created a house with lots of objects to fill it up, but nothing really told a story about who lived there.
I then made a blacksmith set that I placed behind the house so players would understand that the house and mine were owned by a blacksmith.

Level Design

• Design the level layout, story and dramatic events.

• Research medieval villages, blacksmiths and peasants to get an idea on how to create an authentic village.

• Create the level using the Map Magic terrain tool and the Unity terrain editor.

• Place game assets to help guide the player and tell a story.

• Create and place in game special effects such as smoke, lightning, fog, etc..

• Place ambient sounds and triggers to help influence player emotion.

Art

• Create modular kit for the village, blacksmith and mine using Maya.

• Texture the models using Substance Painter and Photoshop.

• Create sprites for particle effects in Photoshop.

• Create Shader for pulsating glow using Shaderforge.

Scripting

• Create scripts for most of the game, including menus, interactive objects and dramatic moments.

Story

• Concept and write the story to base the game around.

• Write dialogue for notes.

Playtesting, feedback and iteration

• Conduct tests with other students studying Game Design and Game Art.

• Submitted to GCAP 2018 showcase, and received feedback from industry professionals.

• Showcased at PAX 2018 Australia, getting invaluable user testing from people who are not involved in the games industry

• Implement changes based on feedback.