As a paranormal investigator, discover the secret of the Crumbling Church.
Goals:
- Explore emotion through:
- Distinctive landmarks & reveals
- Risky traversal & encounters
- Player vulnerability
- Add:
- Storytelling elements
- Enemy encounters (light combat + stealth)
- Detail (whiteboxing)
Overview:
- Solo project
- 4 weeks
- Made in Unreal Engine 5
- Uses IWALS third person shooter template.
- Uses Blockout Starter Pack for architecture.
- The rest of the assets are made in Blender.
- Based on an old assignment where the goal was exploring backtracking.
- Zombies spawn in the level at the end of the path (the church), and the gameplay changes from traversal to combat & stealth.
Narrative overview
You are a paranormal investigator. Strange sights and landslides have hit the Redwood Cliffs – Home to the Crumbling Church, a local landmark.
Rumors suggest a necromancer is attempting to raise the dead in the church’s old graveyard. Too good a story to not investigate.
Top-down overview
3-Act Structure
1. Intro: Setting the stage
Emotions:
- Mystery, anticipation, discovery.
Goals:
- Set the stage for the world and the narrative.
- Reveal landmarks/goals.
- Safe area – No actual dangers (yet), focus is on discovery.
The Watchtower – A safe start (1-2)
The watchtower is the first goal and also serves as the end of the level.
It was originally the starting point of the level, but I added a drive to the tower to better set the scene: environment, mid-term and long-term goals, and narrative.
Exploring the building (3)
The building must be entered through a broken window. It can be explored to find hints of the story and to gain access to the forest path.
2. Build-up: Path to the church
Emotions:
- Nervousness, eeriness, increasing tension.
Goals:
- Create more intense traversal.
- Increase sense of risk and fear over time (suggested horror).
- New biomes: Forest, Graveyard, Church.
Fear of heights (4)
The forest path is accessed by the opening the gate at the top of the tower.
The cliff landslides have all but destroyed the path, and you must traverse carefully.
I find heights and narrow paths to be especially useful for creating intense moments. Especially when you are in full control of your traversal.
Finding the priest (4-!)
Just before getting to the graveyard, you will find a dead priest who has seemingly fought for his life.
This is to suggest the inevitable lurking danger and increase the level of fear.
Next to the priest is a shotgun with limited ammo.
Graveyard reveal (5)
The graveyard is the big reveal. You can’t see the place before you arrive.
A completely messy graveyard with too many graves to fit. Along with mysterious fogs and unnaturally curvy landscapes intended to make the more of a nightmarish scene and make the player feel eerie.
The Crumbling Church (6)
The main landmark of the level which can be seen from most locations.
Mysterious lights from the windows are intended for invoking quiet fear and mystery.
Once again, I play with heights when the player needs to pick up the book at the altar.
3. Climax: Backtracking
Emotions:
- Fear, urgency, vulnerability.
Goals:
- Create combat and stealth encounters with the zombies.
- Create vulnerability by limiting ammunition.
- Have a shortcut for more interesting backtracking.
Stealth (7)
The player will find a shotgun with limited ammo, making it necessary to save this and use as much stealth over combat as possible.
I mix full and half covers (tombstones and rocks) to vary the players ability to move freely.
Fight or run (8-9)
The zombies in the forest are unavoidable. Either shoot them or make a run for it.
The player will have little to no ammo left when they get back to their car, making it necessary to simply make a desperate run as an intense but manageable finale.
Process
Here I will showcase a bit of my progress over the last year and a half since I created the original piece, by comparing selected areas then and now.
The Watchtower
I originally designed the tower based on my then idea of a generic mysterious base, using references from Half-Life which didn’t actually match my goal.
It was changed to resemble forest watchtowers.
The interior has also been made much more detailed and now contains several narrative elements.
The Crumbling Church
My old church architecture made little sense and was made using more memory than realistic references.
The new one is more “moody” and has more realistic architecture.
I detailed the interior, and I changed the destroyed part of the church to look more real, sharp, and dramatic.
The old used square destruction in an attempt to resemble bricks, but this did not look how I had hoped.
The Real Crumbling Church
The Crumbling Church is inspired by a real life church which is located close to where I grew up in Denmark.
This church is destroyed in a similar way, where the altar part has fallen into the ocean.
Luckily, the real one looks a lot less dramatic.
Other changes
- The level was changed from first person to third person. This was because of a personal preference for third person, and because I find it easier to make stealth feel more intense in third person.
- The weapon pickup was changed from a bat to shotgun as the melee combat was difficult to make fun with the template I was working with.
- I added a shortcut back by sliding down the hill, as simple climbing or straight walking would be less interesting. This was originally a basic platforming section with little excitement.
Closing thoughts
Realistic spaces
When recreating this piece, I aimed at challenging myself with making the spaces more realistic, specifically improving the architecture of the watchtower and the church, but also by adding more natural access to the church with the bridge and parking lot.
This could be further improved with more references for interior architecture and details like rubble, trash, rocks, and other elements that could improve the realistic and “alive” feeling of the spaces.
Storytelling
The piece is imagined as being part of a bigger story, which is why I haven’t spend time over-explaining the narrative during gameplay, nor having an introduction. I also prefer when game stories are told by making the player have put together the pieces themselves, rather than “forcing them to care”.
Gameplay
I also focused on improving traversal and gameplay, specifically by adding mechanics such as the zip-line, sliding, stealth, and shooting. I thought of even more things such as climbing, melee combat, and VFX for the zombies spawning (which I half-finished but scrapped), but I had to draw a line with the time limit.
A final change I considered was a closing cinematic sequence of the level, where we would see the player drive away hastily. I do not want the player to have to drive all the way back, which is why the level ends at the watchtower.
Alternatively, the drive back could have been made interesting by having new content, like zombies on the road as an action sequence.