Reborn

Tools: Unity and Visual scripting

Affiliation: The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts

Exam grade: 12/A

Platform: PC

Team size: 6

Period: 2 weeks

Overview:

Reborn is a game about exploring an abandoned house on a post-apocalyptic Earth ~500 years after an alien invasion wiped almost all humans and written knowledge. You are a Reborn scout trying to find historical information about the previous human civilization.

In a team of 6, we were given the task to create a game slice with focus on World Building. I took on role of Level Designer as I wanted to put all my effort into it. I worked with some great people that did assets, story and art direction. That meant I could practice theory and knowledge in game design and Level Design accumulated through the semesters. The vision was an exploration and horror themed game slice.

Role:

Level/environmental designer
Programming mechanics and UI
Drawing concepts for and planning 3D models for a modular system

World Building and Narrative framing the level should support and tell:

You explore an abandoned house 500 years after an alien invasion which killed all but a chosen few, and deleted all explicit information from the world: text, pictures, video, data. Now after 500 years the first new-humans, or Reborns, are awaking from cryo-sleep, with no memory of the past. After the first many years, untethered by the pre-apocalyptic faulty civilization, you hear about a nearby house which contains stuff which the new Reborns have not seen before. Will a subjection to these informations result future generations of Reborns to make the same mistakes as the pre-apocalypse humans? Or will they learn from their mistakes?

You arrive to the abandoned house and explore to find a hidden basement.

In the basement, the player finds some leftover scientific studies. Notably, someone found a way to display information: text, pictures, figures using light to project it onto a surface, without the alien technology destroying it.

Screenshots

1/1

Level design

Level Design

Level design bible download

I made a Level Design bible to reference and use when creating Level Design for Reborn. Because of the required length of it, sections where cut. Please mainly read what is written on this webpage, but also have a look at the bible:

Layout sketching

Layout sketch iteration
Goal: find basement in house
Worked closely with the AD

Considerations:

Pacing/variety
Composition/lighting/points of interest in the mise-en-scene
Pathfinding with distinctive rooms and identifiable "landmarks"
Embedded story in environment.
What emotions will certain sections evoke: surprise, tension, fear, uncertainty
Mastering and exploring the world through mechanics

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Grey boxing:

Environment

CONSIDERATIONS

Ensuring vision and atmosphere
Lighting and "landmarks" used to help navigation by creating points of interest
As a part of the world building, the constraint was that the world is devoid of text and pictures/images

Before

AFTER

Composition in the mise-en-scene

Composition mapping

Where the camera/player is looking is somewhat unpredictable. I mapped out possible positions the player will be and gave special care to their respective composition.

Composition mapping. Final layout in-engine.

Red are positions the player will definitely be.

Blue are positions the player might be.

GAMEPLAY BEATS

The numbers on the picture refer to pacing-beats:

Introduction to setting and narrative
Introduction to mechanics of picking up keys and using them
Expansion of mechanics and adding more difficulty through searching
Introducing new mechanic of combining in an locked area (the player cannot backtrack) through searching
Expanding even more using newly learnt mechanics but even more difficult because the player has to backtrack.

Examples of composition technique

Layers: foreground, middle and background.

Pacing Beat 3: Introduction of a new game mechanic.
Increased difficulty through visibility and composition adjustments.
The locked door is located outside through the porch door.
The key needed for the locked door is left near the starting point of the player in this beat.
Lack of explicit direction encourages exploration as a significant aspect of the player experience.
The key is placed in the dark without any guiding lines toward it.
An icon appears when the player is close to prompt them to pick up the key.

The location of the key in the dark.

Modular System

I inquired the AD about a modular system which I thought we needed to realize our ideas for the Level and Environment Design. He delegated the overseeing of it to me, and so I worked closely with the 3D modeling team. This meant I became a supplementing art director and took some executive decisions. To communicate which models had to be made to the team I drew these concepts. I then listed them in priority.

Concepts and explanations for each model

Main goal of the modular system:

Creating a desired scene with the least amount of unique models and resources before the deadline.

To achieve this I had to consider these for choosing which models to be made and prioritize:

1. Reusability

2. Compatibility with other models

3. Complexity/modeler ability/time to complete

4.Believability. Does it fit into the narrative/world?

The 3D artist made all models within the deadline, and a few more. I was very pleased with their abilities so I could start designing the environment much earlier that anticipated.

I also came up with the visual concept, because the worldbuilding and overall theme was my initial idea, which was voted on the most. The AD wanted me to give him some initial inspiration to work from, so I made some moodboard. He then later added to them to achieve his own vision.

Self-critique

In this section I will introduce some things I would change if I had time.

Some areas are too dark. Solution is to either change post-processing exposure, or add a light source. Maybe even consider a flashlight.
At the end of the section, when the player has to backtrack to advance, they might go back to the beginning and get frustrated because the space is too big for them to find the object needed to advance. A solution would be to narrow down the search area, by closing the front door to the house once you enter.
Some models were never used because they were not what I was looking for. I could have communicated better what types of objects were needed.
The keys all have names that indicate directly what door they unlock. More implicit directing through perhaps color- or shape-coding them could result in more satisfying autonomous gameplay. Though it needs to be said, the visuals were the goal which the teachers gave us.
Playtest, playtest, playtest. The extend of the exam did not allow much time for testing. If I had had more time, I would have play-tested the level to get feedback I would not be able to get on my own.

MILAS NORMAN

REBORN