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Project Overview
Team Size: 10
Development Time: January 2019 - May 2019
Platform: PC
Role: Narrative Designer
A short reel showing the game and explaining my design process
A section of Game play towards the end of Level 1
Responsibilities
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Develop a core story arc for the player to follow
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Create lore for the game's world
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Develop interesting characters
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Communicate with product owner and team to ensure the narrative fits with the game's scope/vision
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Thoughtfully document all work in a clear manor
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Design and implement level 1
Project Overview
Gaze of The Abyss is a two player co-op horror puzzle game. In it players navigate a sunken ship to determine the fate of their uncle and retrieve his pocket watch. To do this one player controls the diver while the other controls a drone that serves as the camera. Players have to work together in order to navigate through the environment and avoid the horrors lurking in the dark.
The game was created as a project for the class Production 2 at Champlain college. The development cycle lasted three month’s with a team size of ten for the majority of production. The game was exhibited at the Champlain Games Festival and the RPI Game Festival.
The game was exhibited at the Champlain Games Festival in 2019
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Role
I joined the team after per-production and served as the project’s narrative designer. While the general plot had already been established it was relatively bare and needed to be fleshed out. My role was to flesh out the plot and game world and then implement those changes into the build. While on the team I created the core story arc, developed exposition and designed various characters. In addition I served as a level designer and was tasked with creating the game’s first level.
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I created three drafts of the game’s plot. The first draft drew from classic monster narratives such as Frankenstein and Dracula. In it, the player fights back and ultimately “defeats” the lamprey people, although still perishes to one that survived. The second plot takes heavy inspiration from classic Lovecraft stories such as “The Call of Cthulhu”. It incorporates several supernatural elements and ended with the player escaping with the insinuation that the threat was not over.
The final version blended elements from both genres. The primary plot is similar to the first draft but the player is not able to fight back against the lamprey people and is ultimately eaten. It drew from both classic tales as well as modern Lovecraft horror.
After presenting these drafts to my team, it was determined that a modified version of the third draft fit best with the game's vision. Elements from the second draft were incorporated such as humanity awakening the Lamprey people in the hopes of using them as weapons. However, the largest change (and the most divisive one) was to the ending. Most of the team was dissatisfied with all of the endings presented in the drafts and thus a completely new one would have to be formed.
I began working with the other two designers on my team to determine how the narrative should be implanted and to create a finalized ending. I was responsible for maintaining the narrative design document and fleshing out the game’s world and characters. My teammates were responsible for designing each level in a way that could help tell the game’s plot. We primarily stuck to our roles but gave feedback on each other’s work remotely. However, we did meet in person once a week to collaborate on design decisions and discuss the state of the game’s design.
Narrative Arc / Exposition
Upon joining the team several of the game’s elements had already been decided upon. These elements included the high-level plot, setting, and basic mechanics. It was my job to take these elements and combine them into one cohesive experience. I began by reading through all of the game’s documentation and talking to my teammates to get a better understanding of the game's vision.
After I had a firm grasp on the game’s vision I began creating drafts for various potential plots. The core difference between these drafts was whether we wanted or story to be based on Lovecraftian horror or to be a more standard monster tale. At this point, the team had been drawing from lover crafts work in many of our elements such as our setting and monsters. However, our plot and mechanics had yet to fully commit to this style. In the game, you could still fight back against the monsters, which was in stark defiance to the core elements of the genre.
A piece of concept art done by Sam Arehart that illustrates
the tone we were aiming for with the game
Ending
Our biggest challenge was creating an ending that fit well with the game’s tone and provided a satisfying conclusion. The primary decision we had to make was whether the player character would survive the experience or if they would perish before escaping the ship. Those in favor of survival argued that having the player die would be dissatisfying and make the player feel like their work was for nothing. Those opposed stated that that having the player character perish would fit better with the game’s tone and emphasize how strong the lamprey people were.
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Ultimately we decided that instead of the lamprey people attacking the player character they should instead attack the drone. This left the fate of the main character ambiguous as with the drone destroyed the player no longer has any way to view the world. Many of the games plot threads were purposefully left open such as the player’s fate and the fate of the lamprey people. The goal was to create a type of lingering horror that would follow the player after the game’s completion. We wanted to keep players awake at night wondering what happened and if the lamprey people were still lurking in some long-forgotten portion of the sea.
Level Design
It was my responsibility to design and implement a level that would serve as the first and last area the player would encounter. I had to create an environment that could serve as both the tutorial and the final challenge. To accomplish this, I made my area multi-leveled where the player would first go through the lower floor then though the upper one on their way back. The lower area provided simple challenges to teach the player the games basic controls. The upper presented the player with a final challenge before sending them down to the end of the first floor.
The level was set to take place in the ship’s upper deck where the lounge and dining area were located. I referenced several photos of ships within the time period while designing to ensure that the level would feel like a real space. One of the ships I frequently referenced was the RMS Lusitania. This was a civilian ship that was sunk by Germany in World War One. The ship had been smuggling weapons to the allied powers under the guise of being a civilian ship. The story of The Atlas (our in-game ship) was heavily based on this ship and it's sinking. I researched the design of this ship and was able to find photos of its lounge area. I heavily based my design off of these images to be as accurate as possible to the history we were drawing from.
A image of the RMS Lusitania's lounge that I frequently referenced while creating the first level
Reflecting
This was my first time working with a large team on a long-term project. During this project, I filled the roles of narrative and level designer. I volunteered for these roles at the beginning of the project, and it was my first time filling either of them. I had to learn how to be successful at each role while performing them on top of learning how to be a successful member of a large team. Because of this, I made several mistakes and learned lessons that would influence my process on later projects
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At the beginning of this project, I volunteered to be a level designer and the primary narrative designer. These were roles that I was excited to take on as I had never done them before and they both interested me. However, in my excitement, I failed to evaluate how much work each role would entail. Gradually the workload for both roles began to overwhelm me causing the quality of my work to suffer. I learned to take time to estimate the work tasks will take and compare it to the time I have available before taking on new work. This issue could have been avoided if I had just taken a step back at the beginning of the project to determine what I could realistically do. In future projects, I made it a point to do this before I accepted any new roles.
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As a narrative designer, my main mistake was prioritizing documentation over implementation. I had always maintained (and still do maintain) that thorough documentation is imperative to the success of a project. However this instance I had gone far too overboard with my planning. I had created pages of exposition with no plan on how to implement it. It was not till near the project’s end when I finally began to enter the build and implement everything I had designed. This led to the game having fewer story interactions than we wanted due to time concerns. From this, I learned that while planning and documentation are essential, prioritizing them without any implementation plan can lead to ruin. In the future, when I was again a narrative designer (this time on Eira: Echoes of Adventure), I made sure to plan the narrative's role in the game while I designed it and implementing it in the build as soon as possible.
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My biggest failure on this project was my failure to communicate my issues with the team. Throughout the project, I was afraid of my teammates thinking I was lazy. Because of this, I failed to communicate when there were impediments and took on more work even after I had become overwhelmed. If I had been more open about my problems, my team and I could have modified my tasks and put me in a position where I could produce quality work. However, I was so worried about how others would perceive me that I simply continued silently drowning. In future projects, I have made a constant effort to be open and honest with my team about issues that I had been having. The results have been a reduced level of stress and a higher level of team trust.
The Team
Andrew Chepega
DEsigner
Claire Yeash
DEsigner
Alexander Hubble
Programmer
Andrew Macdonald
DEsigner
Austin Laimos
Programmer
Nik Bair
Programmer
Samantha Arehart
Artist
John Stopen
Producer
Grace Magnant
Artist
