SHUTTER SHIFT

A Third Person Time Travel Photography Puzzle Level

Introduction

My aim was to craft an engaging puzzle experience set on an Island, where the player uses a camera to shift between past and present. I aimed to emphasize the environment and provide players with a sense of satisfaction when solving puzzles.

Specification

6 weeks half-time
Created with Unreal Engine 5
Assets from Stylized Nature Pack
Template made by Max Forsberg and modified by me
- Added the photography feature
- Added time travel mechanic

SUMMARY

Focus

My goal with this piece has been to create an interesting puzzle experience using a camera, set on an Island with multiple layers to it. I wanted to highlight the environment and make the player feel smart when completing the puzzle.

I came up with the concept of using a camera to see into another dimension, here represented by shifting between past and present.

Core Pillars

Smart time travel puzzle solving

When completing the puzzle, I wanted the player to feel smart and accomplished. Using time travel to make the player vigilant of their environment.

Mysterious Island

The location of the level is on a desolate Island, with only a lighthouse in proximity, but separated from the player by a body of water.

GAME MECHANICS

Timetravel with a Camera

In a previous assignment at The Game Assembly, I made a prototype of a camera, and that made me think about the possibilities of the game mechanics.

What if something changes in your surroundings when looking through the lens? Maybe the player could change the environment by taking photos?

Using this as a foundation, I came up with the idea to have two parallel "dimensions" that the player could freely choose between using their camera, represented here by present & past.

When I started looking into different games that use a time travel or photography functions, I found and got inspired by games like "Viewfinder" and levels such as "A Crack in the Slab" from Dishonored 2.

Camera view

Using your camera, you can see into the past and move within that dimension. Doors that are closed in the present could be open in the past, and other elements in the environment might have been affected by the passage of time.

I aimed to demonstrate to the player early on that there are notable differences between the environment in the past and the present, highlighting significant changes that occurred during the intervening time period.

Having the cabin in this state was planned from the very beginning, but I only executed it in the very end of the project. For most of the weeks working on this, a missing door handle was the only detail that changed between past and present in this room. I'm very happy with the results and the effect it gives the player right when picking up the camera.

This also ties into my second core pillar, mysterious island, where the player does not know what has happened in the time between, thereby enticing their curiosity to find out more.

Taking photos

By taking photos of items, you can bring it from the past to the present.

Deciding what would happen when you take a photo with the camera unfolded gradually during my work. I liked the idea of not having an inventory and keeping it diegetic, but still wanted the player to have the option of picking up items and use them in the scene.

One limit of this is that the player can only pick up things in the past and that was something I had to plan my puzzles around, working around it to stay true to my first core pillar: Smart time travel puzzle solving.

PROCESS

Pre-production

In my design process, I usually sit down and write suggestions and questions for myself by hand. I try to map out the experience in words and establish some baseline rules around mechanics.

I also draw some small sketches to define a feeling of the environment I want to achieve.

Moving forward from my sketchbook, I plan the level and story beats on a post-it wall, a real actual wall, or a digital counterpart such as Miro.

Here I try to reflect the experience as it will be played and shape the dramatic curve.

Blockout to Whitebox

One of the first things I changed was to separate the Lighthouse from the rest of the island, creating a natural blocker in the form of water to create a second goal, getting hold of a boat.

I try to tighten the experience and refine the areas as I'm working.

Adding landscape, vegetation and lighting to the level really helped set the mood I wanted to achieve. Since this is a photography-based level, I wanted to create an environment that the player would enjoy capturing.

OVERVIEW

1/2

Creating the Island

When creating the island, I had already planned some of the puzzles in great detail, and some were just a roughly sketched.

When working on the blockout I had the distance between the puzzles in mind, so each puzzle would get their own "room" and be distinct from each other in the environment too.

The camera also comes to use when traversing the area, to keep the player engaged.

A ruined bridge worked nicely as a reset for the player, their perceived path was broken, and they need to platform their way across rocks in the water to get to the other side, changing the style of traversing.
I knew I wanted the finale to be either in the actual Lighthouse or the Boathouse. I settled on the later to cut down the scope.

PUZZLE BREAKDOWN

From start to finish the level contains seven puzzles of varying difficulty. The initial puzzle serves as an introduction, ensuring that players grasp the mechanics. Going further on in the level there are more steps involved in each, ramping up the difficulty.

The part of the level shown below is in the very end, the boat house puzzle that is the players way of getting of the Island. I had the idea of the player causing a problem for themselves, breaking something in present and then using the past to change the position of the object they broke, so it would be out of harm’s way.

The very first version only had a boat outside that a flagpole had fallen over into, breaking it.

The thought of having the player be the breaker of the boat started spinning, and more layers were added until it had an entire house around it.

My first core pillar is Smart time travel puzzle solving, something that I've had in mind throughout the whole process of creating the project. When classmates would playtest an "aaahhaaaa" or "Wait I know!" was proof for me that I had achieved my goal of making the player feel smart.

ISSUES AND SOLUTIONS

Dividing Time

The goal was to let the player in a natural way choose between present and past. After some play testing it was obvious that most players just wanted to stay in the past as much as possible, because that’s where most solutions were. My first solution to this just made more problems.

By going back and redesign some of the puzzles, I was able to remove the time limit.

I wrote out all the steps to the puzzles and defined what steps were in present and in past, so I could get a clearer view of the flow.

I tried setting a time limit to the camera, so it would fade to black in six seconds.

This turned out to be a good temporary fix.

But in the end, it was too punishing for the player. The stress of their view being obscured made the play testers frustrated and confused.

By dividing all the steps in the puzzles to need both past and present input to get to a solution, it was more natural for the player to freely switch between past and present.

Adding more details for the player to discover in the environment made them curios and wanting to switch between past and present as not to miss anything.

Scripting & Technical solutions

When it came to realizing my ideas into something playable, I thought of using

streaming in sub-levels.

I started with a persistent base level and created a sub-level for past and present.

When streaming in and out the sub-levels they reset in between, and this caused some problems in the puzzle building. When I wanted to change something in the past to have a lasting effect on the present, the change would reset when going back and forth.

When walking around normally, the present sub-level is active, but when looking through the camera the past is active.

In the camera user interface, I added a fade effect when transitioning, to sell the experience and buy some time for the sub-levels to load.

I had to fake some objects by changing the objects visibility or mesh. This way I could use sequences and they would keep their state and not be reset, so it would still appear to be part of the past or present.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

This piece was more technically challenging

than I anticipated, but the idea felt strong enough to continue to explore. I am very happy that I did and I learnt so much during this project.

If I could go back to the past, I would warn myself of using streaming in and out of sub-levels. This approach led to so many exceptions where I had to fake what time they were in, creating a lot of objects specific blueprints.

Another way of working with the time travel effect would have been to duplicate the level and move it far away in the same scene, and instead teleport the player between the two.

A positive aspect of the way I chose to work is that it is very quick to iterate, and easy to get a quick overview of the differences in past and present with just a click of a button. So maybe not only warn me, but just ask to explore more options before settling on this one.

I would like to continue to work with this concept and add more changes in the environment to enhance the environmental storytelling and worldbuilding.

Overall, I feel proud when thinking about all the work I put into this project, and I'm very happy with the result!