The items needed

Items Of the Era

Since we have chosen a specific period in time all the items we make have to be historically accurate to make the game seem better made so i have made a list of items needed which includes

Benches

plain wooden tables

Pentagram

skulls

blood splatters

Children paintings (for narrative)

Candles

candles sticks

ink wells

quill

bodies (dead)

crucified man

various paintings of students teachers

black boards

knives

upside down crosses

 BARRELS >:D

more from this list would be added as the project goes on if they are needed and if there is enough time but all these items must be researched to what they looked like in the Tudor period so that we stay historically accurate.

how to put more narrative in the map

 

The narrative in the map

 

We talked about this and got to the conclusion pretty fast of how we would do it. We decided we will tell the player about what happened before you got their through pictures on the walls not normal framed pictures but children's pictures painted on the walls with blood telling you a visual story of the schools past what the children did and how the school ended up like this. I think that this is a fantastic idea because when i want to know the back story i usually have to read a huge in game book which almost know one will do but in this level players will get little hints of what happened and will be able to put it together themselves making the experience better.

The maps full story

 

The Full Story

You will play as a Father who was just arrived at your daughter Bethany's Boarding school you plan to take her back home. As you approach the school you can feel something isn't right its too quiet there are no children running around and no teacher either, you approach the doors of the school and they are slightly open you step into the school to see a horrific sight, their are bodies everywhere bodies of all ages from teachers to children no older than 10 it is as if a pack of wild dogs was released on them. You panic trying to find Bethany as you are searching you find a book with her name on it as soon as you pick it up the book the book begins talking to you shouting daddy help me somehow Bethany is talking to you through the book you ignore how strange it seems because you have to find her and this is the only way you have The first thing the book says is that she does not know where she is so you must re-trace her steps completing the tasks that she says on the way strange things like lighting candles in a certain order and turning crosses upside down as you get closer to her the voice deepens and starts saying stranger and darker things but you continue because you know you are almost to Bethany's location. As you enter the final room you see your daughter Bethany's body lying there lifeless it looks like it has been their for months you realise that there was no way Bethany was the one talking to you, the book begins to laugh menacingly all the candles in the room are suddenly blown out you can see nothing only darkness and the books laughter slowly stops and after a few moments of silence the book utters the words " Welcome to Hell"

So guys this is the story for the teams level i think if done properly this will be fantastic to play.  

The story of the level

 

The story of the level

 

While the artsits were designing the assats needed i got the job of coming up with a story to the level so when i am designing the level i will have a clear sence of direction and how the level should feel and most importantly how it would make the player feel. Here are the short stories to the map.

 

The ghost of a Whipping boy ( a Whipping boy will be a boy who take the punishment for a rich familes child) draws a man into the school where he died to find his body thus saving the Whipping boys soul.

 

School children finds a mysterious book and follow the instuctions it tells them like turn crosses upside down draw pentagrams ect and they are tricked into summoning a demon which kills everyone in the school.

 

A Father has arrived at his daughters boarding school to take her home as he gets there he can tell something isnt right their are bodies everywhere lying in pools of blood you find a book with your daughters name on it which which talks to you and gives you instructions to follow so you can get to your daughter as you complete more and more objectives for the book its voice changes and becomes more menevolant which in the end traps you and takes you to Hell.

 

The children of the school become possessed leading you into the school and they eventually hunt you down once inside and kill you.

 

after a team discusion we chose the 3rd story about the father looking for his daughter we thought that this would play on the players heart and drive them to get further and further to get your daughter back. We belive that the level would also be able to tell its own story about what happened to everyone else.

Why the Tudors

 

Why we chose the Tudors

We as a team did talk about having it in different times like the future or present but also the past i was strongly drawn to the past option because people were a lot more superstitious back then and very strict in schools so we would be able to put some very strange goings on in the level. I was also drawn more to this because of the assats the artists need to make like if its futuristic we don't really know what anything would look like so we may have things out of place and it would be hard to have ideas that everyone can have a Strong image in their head of what it would look like because it simply doesn't exist yet. And finally since we don't have enough time to make fully made enemies we could have a demon/spirit enemy and as i said the medieval times people were very superstitious which even though we don't have visual enemies running around we can play with the players head and make him turn around every time a noise is made or some candles are blown out. The last reason why i thought past was the best was because of the lighting i would be more freaked out if a room of candles were all blew out rather than lights turning off with candles if gives you the feeling that something big is in the room with you. And after more group meetings we did all decide to chose the  past for the reasons i said above.

The time Period and setting

 

The Time period and Setting

So now we had our genre figured out we had to pick a where and a when for the level we had a list of ideas which were a castle,Factory,Manor,Hospital,Prison,Derelict Buildings,School and a lab after a discussion we narrowed it down to either the Hospital or the School we and after another discussion we went for the school we believe that the what makes things really scary for a player is reliability if they could recognise themselves in that situation they get a lot more tense and example is derelict buildings if i was playing a horror game i wouldn't be able to relate because i have never really been in one so i wouldn't bee on edge but if i was playing a horror game that was set in a school everyone has been to a school so they would be able to relate and that's what gives a player that little shock and burst of adrenaline when something does happen to them. No for the era we decided to go for a more medieval look and we settled in the Tudor era so between the years if 1485-1603.

Research for level

 

Research for the level

 

We are in a team of 3 which consists of me as the designer and 2 artists we began by researching games that had very good narratives in other words maps that tell a story of their own we began looking at games like Left for dead, Dead space, Amnesia and more we didn't limit ourselves to just games we looked at films that do the same films like Dawn of the dead,Cabin in the woods and R.E.C we quickly realised that all of the ones we thought of were all survival horror films and games so that is the direction we wanted to go we decided to make a level a survival horror level,. We now just had to decide the setting and the era.

Project 3 Level Narrative

 

Project 3

 

We have been given our third project which is to collaborate with the artists in the class to make a level with a very good narrative basically we will have the artists create assists in 3D modelling programmes and the they will put them in the unreal engine for the designers like myself to make a level out of so all posts from now will be on this project.