MIDNIGHT BLOOM

An Environmental Third Person Shooter

Introduction

My aim was to create a visually striking grayscale level with atmospheric moments. I integrated light and shadows as a core part of exploring this desolate base.

Specification

6 weeks half-time
Created with Unreal Engine 5.2
Jakub W's IWALS Template
Assets from Dreamscape: Stylized Environment Tower, and a tarp texture from Texturecan.com

SUMMARY

Focus

My goal was to create an atmospheric, moody and grayscale level with wow-moments in the environment and two smaller well planned combat encounters. I wanted to challenge myself by using light and shadows as a core part of the experience.

My inspiration came from different sources, the movies Stalker (1979) and WALL·E (2008). They might seem like an odd match, but the outcome is an engaging level where the player explores a base in a desolate landscape with the mission to extract a plant.

Core Pillars

Light as a guide

This core pillar is something that is directly reflected in the level design and wayfinding of the level. As a challenge to myself I aimed to bring it into the combat scenarios as well.

Abandoned, half built and brutalistic

The location of the level is in a desolate landscape, with a huge cooling tower looming over the player.

THREE ACT STRUCTURE

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ACT I

Introducing the first enemy

The first enemy is presented by using its silhouette only, giving the player time to plan their next move. Will you shoot through the tarp or face the enemy?

The tarp effect gives the player the upper hand, they can see the enemy, but the enemy is still unknowing of your presence.

In prior assignments at The Game Assembly, I have used transparency to convey different feelings to the player, either using tarp to show a silhouette of the enemy, or frosted glass to make the player feel watched and not in control.

Moving on from the tarp scene, the player gets an overview of the coming combat area. The area is dark, and the lights form the large back wall is the first focus point. When playtesting, the enemies were hard to spot from the balcony. Instead of brightening the entire area below I added a flashlight on the enemies’ shoulder. This highlighted their movement. The enemy it self is still hard to spot from this location, but the flashlight reveals that there is something conscious moving around down there.

The covers are placed so the player can choose if they want to go on headfirst out to the no man's land or try to flank them from the side following one of the cover walls.

ACT II

The Cooling Tower

In the middle of the cooling tower the flower is located, giving the player a reward after their first combat area and some risky traversing.

This wow-moment was very well received by play testers from the start, but they had some trouble finding their way after picking up the flower.

By adding a huge crack and damage to the cooling tower, I could let in a crack of light, highlighting a ladder on the opposite side of the tower.

While climbing the player can see another human silhouette at the base of the crack, this time to make the player attentive over their surroundings, preparing them for the coming combat.

ACT III

Final combat area

On top of the scaffolding there is an enemy behind the tarp. The lower covers are designed for protection against enemies on the same level, while the higher covers provide protection from the enemy positioned above. If the player is vigilant and interested in exploring alternative routes into the combat area, there is a path to the left. This path allows the player to flank the enemies and reach a high point, thereby surprising the enemy hidden behind the tarp and gaining the upper hand.

The flanking path was added late into this piece, I had explored the idea before adding the scaffolding as height, but it got lost during the process. After adding the scaffolding and the elevated enemy, the flanking path made more sense to me, now that a clear goal of the alternative path was there.

PROCESS

Pre production

Two years ago, I walked past a building where the facade was being renovated. The sun shined through the tarp, creating a lightbox effect. I snapped a photo, and that image has stuck with me ever since. This inspired the first scene with the silhouette.

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I browsed Pinterest for more inspiration and made a Miro divided into different categories. From there I started sketching and challenged myself to try to make a speedy block out, focusing on the big picture.

Blockout to Whitebox

When working on the main building I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted based on my inspiration board and sketches. I also looked at St Mark's Church in Björkhagen designed by Sigurd Lewerentz and incorporated a side wing to the building.

With the blockout done I could quickly start to playtest and iterate on the level. The first building has kept a lot of its initial shape and feeling, while the cooling tower and the last combat area got moved around and shifted a bit more.

GUIDING THE PLAYER WITH LIGHT

Throughout this piece I've tried to use the light as a guide for the player. This also came with the challenge of excluding light in other areas, to create contrast without darkening the playable space too much.

By creating four different gray materials I could control the contrast of the rooms even more, highlighting covers and key elements with a very light gray, and contrast it to darker shades in the background.

ISSUES AND SOLUTIONS

Tension in a "safehouse"

One of the things that play-testers reacted to was that the cooling tower was pretty much left alone by the enemies supposedly guarding it. I wanted the space to act as a ‘safehouse’ for the player, but with this feedback, I got worried that it might be seen as too calm instead of a well deserved break in action.

By adding one enemy on the scaffolding that the player uses as an entry point, and one at the exit of the cooling tower, I was able to keep the player on their toes, creating suspense while the player is still in the tower after getting the plant.

The door problem

When playtesting the first combat area, the player usually got overwhelmed by more than two enemies right away. As a result, they would retreat to the safest space in the start of the area. Once the enemies were neutralized, players would then exit the area without any further interaction.

To solve this, I first introduced the two enemies, and when the player has crossed the middle of the no man’s land spawn in two more enemies, creating a new no-man’s land between the second row of covers and the row of pillars.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I was set on challenging myself with this environment, most of my levels have been set outdoors and are usually very lush and green.

With this piece I wanted to tie into my experience in architecture, creating something inspired by brutalism. In 2021 I graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the program Architecture, Visualization and Communication at Malmö University. In one of the lectures, we were looking at works by Sigurd Lewerentz and his way of using light and glass, which was a big source of inspiration.

Something that I would have loved to develop more would have been the end of the level, to go out with more of a bang.

One idea I had early on was to create a puzzle with light and mirrors, so that the player themselves would be the guider of light in the very end. Even though this was cut to keep the scope down, I am happy with the result!