Level Blockout

For my block out I decided to concentrate more on the function rather than the aesthetics values since my block out would be used to place the level interactions in for Chris Butler's unit. This meant that I tried to keep my terrain quite level so that it was manageable for editing later if the need arose. I did this by using the level floor plan we created just give the basic feel for the flow of the level as this was big focus point for us to have for our project.

After this I then began to place trees into the terrain to cut off certain areas that will be used for cutscenes that directly reflect the storyboard I have created so a lot of the placement of objects even though they are placeholders for the FMP they do give a general understanding of the world and how it will eventually take shape in the FMP.

As the base of the level got shaped I then began to fill it up with item that would be used for traversal and world building, things like the ruins our the cliffs towards the end loop of the level these all gave shape to what would become the functional side of the level.

StoryBoarding

As you can see I don't consider myself the best artist when is comes to this kind of thing but I focused mainly on the content of the storyboard and not so much how it looks, as the idea is to get my point across. As you can see I followed the story directly. The camera captures a shot of her home, she walks out and spots a rabbit, she chases the rabbit into some old ruins where she meets the fog and runs away from it. The fog colour was decided with Emma as we had spoke about this point before and we decided as a team to go for a purple fog. The purple reflects how man-made it looks and maybe leads the player to think that maye this fog is not a natural occurence and rather mechanically developed.

My storyboard is all about the camera angles and development of the story as they will be important when creating the cutscenes from them.

The Character and Concept Art

For the character of our game, we always wanted a little girl, having been inspired by Coraline, Little Nightmares and Inside as mention in an earlier post. For this particular character, we always liked the idea of a raincoat but with our inspiration being the characters stated, I personally decided that I'd avoid using that outfit on her and instead focused more on my own design.

As you can seen from the concept art, we wanted to stick with the gas mask idea but still make it out like she is a child even though you can't see her face, this I feel is accomplished by her bunny ears which reference her love of rabbits which is the driving force of the story. The idea on the left is my favourite because of the long sleeves, in my opinion is reflects on how small she is as her clothes don't fit her. I also wanted emphasis on her shes which are also too big with loose laces, reflecting on her age almost.

This is the floorplan that me and Emma created. The white path is the route towards the ruin as referenced in the story and the red one is the route home, however the path leading off into different ways is for the game mechanic side of the level as this is where the quick time events will be placed.

The Story

From one of the first classes we had with Pete, he read out his own story that he would later show us a storyboard from, from this, me and Emma came up with the idea to write a story based on our ideas so far to help us visualise the cutscene.

Emma wrote the story based upon the ideas and plans we came up with together

Project: Fog

The scene begins with a close worn old leather book upon an ink stained wooden desk surround by old papers and quills. The book opens slowly to two blank pages that slowly materialise into the story and a picture of a cottage, suddenly the pages are enveloped in black ink that engulfs the entire screen. 

As the screen slowly clears to a view of an orange sky with a sun that is just minutes from setting, a monarch butterfly swoops across the screen, the camera follows as it flies down to a little cottage surround entirely by trees and fences, clearly deep in a forest. 

A little girl emerges from the home, however her face is not shown, only the back of her head which is hooded with a raincoat. He hums as she skips down her pathway, towards the deep of the forest when something white and fluffy catches her eyes. As the bunny turns, it reveals that the rabbit is no ordinary rabbit, its eyes enlarged and frightening, the girl reveals her face to show a gas mask over it. She chases the bunny down the dirt pathway through the forest, the forest growing darker and darker as the sun goes down, she passed signs after signs of warnings, begging any traveller to keep away, alerting to danger ahead. Running after the animal, she reaches ruins where she corners the bunny.

CRACK!

A loud noise behind her causes her to suddenly look behind her. A powerful thick purple fog begins to spread through the trees towards her, with her eyes widened, the little girls starts running in the opposite direction of this fog, it tightly chasing behind her as she jumps over rocks and fallen tree branches. Behind her she hears loud growls and squeals as the woodland animals begin transforming into horrifying almost demon looking versions of themselves as the fog surrounds them. As she runs through the forest, she passes small areas of the forest where the trees have been chopped down and tents had been built, filled with gurneys and countless body bags wrapped with black tape. As she crosses a small lake, she stops running, seeming to think she is safe where she is, she bends and pants heavily through her mask, worn out from her chase. She slowly stands up and looks towards her home, only to find a pile of rubble where it once laid, as she stares at what once was her home, a twig snaps behind her, she looks back then slowly upwards as a large shadow crosses over her.

Pre-Production

Pre proecution

14^th September

The begin this unit, me and Emma came up with general ideas for the game, we came up with the idea of creating a character introduction short. The idea came from Bastion's short from Blizzard's Overwatch, in this short you see Bastion in a forest surrounded by plants and animals. The main thing I personally liked from this short was the weather effects, the overall image of the forest and how calm and peaceful everything seems. We later came up with the idea of creating a shocking genre twisting short that started off with this calm forest but turned darker into more of a thriller horror game.

These are some of the videos we liked the look of and wanted to somehow cooperate into the game. We liked the idea of a big chase scene so we watched videos from Spirited Away, Inside and Little Nightmares and came up with the idea of the character running into the forest chasing something and meeting danger where they will outrun it.

The character idea came from Coraline, Little Nightmares and Louise from Bob's Burgers, we want a little girl as our lead but wanted her to have a creepy aspect to her, leading us to incorporate a gas mask to her look inspired by Psycho Mantis from the Metal Gear Solid series. We came up with the idea that she would chase a bunny into the forest, lose track of time and eventually come into danger which is what inspired us to create the 'fog'. This fog came from the TV show The 100 and also The Hunger Games were at a certain time a poisonous fog envelopes the forest and destroys any life.

This moodboard is something we created with the environment and mood in mind, we added creepy games that had little kids as the main characters and also brighter games to show how we want the forest to look before the horror parts of the cutscene begins happening.

Introduction

Unit 3 is an advanced level design unit. In this unit, we are going through the process of a character introduction in the form of a cutscene. For this unit though, we'll be just going through pre-production and planning, story creation and storyboarding and finally creating a project in UE4 of our finished blockout.

This unit will be a group project between me and Emma Kewley. We will be coming up with a story together but going through each task individually and as this unit will be continued with Chris Butler's unit on advanced level interaction, we will be working together on creating a joined level with interaction in it, but for this unit, each piece of work will be separate and only the pre-production, planning and the presentation will be done together.

Emma's blog is below

https://gamedesignunit3.tumblr.com/

This is the brief broken down into tasks:

Task 1: This task is basically the planning and early development for the cutscenes, this will include, mood-boards, story planning, early concepts and storyboarding.

Task 2: This is the narrative behind the storyboard and discussion, this will be the blogged side of the unit.

Task 3: This task is the presentation on the final work.

Task 4: This task is the presentation of the UE4 level and feedback received from the work blogged.

The idea of this unit is to use the skills we have already learned and apply them to the creation of professional character introduction in the form of cutscenes. By the end of the unit, we should have a clear presentation of everything that we will intend to finish in the FMP and also showcase our blockouts, concept art and storyboards.