Grad School Team Project
Lost in the Dark - 3rd Person Single Player (PC)
Team Size: 17
Genre: Horror
Lost in the Dark is a third-person exploration game with horror elements set during an epidemic in Victorian-era London. Players play as a young orphan trapped in her own psyche who must find a way to escape from a nefarious entity seeking to drag her into the depths of the darkness. Players are equipped with a lantern as their sole means of protection, and must stay in the light to avoid fading away.
Development Time: 6 months
My Responsibilities
Lighting
-
Completed 1st Lighting Passes for Art Team
-
Completed multiple gameplay lighting passes during production
-
Created Post-Processing volumes for different levels to enhance the atmosphere
 |  |
|---|---|
 |  |
 |  |
 |
Tutorial Lead (Producer Appointed)
-
Worked with Lead Artist, Producer, and a Programmer to create cinematics
-
Designed and built the Tutorial Level
-
Multiple Lighting Passes to help direct players
-
Created Post Processing Volumes to enhance the player's experience
Level Design
-
Designed and Built most of level 2
-
Worked closely with the Art department to ensure clear interdepartmental communication
-
Responsible for making quality assurance adjustments for all levels
Tutorial Work
As the Tutorial Lead, I was in charge of creating an experience that would teach the players everything they would need to know while delivering the intended atmosphere.
List of tasks completed as Tutorial Lead:
- Directed both cinematics that takes place in the tutorial
- Designed and Building the level with a mod kit
- Communicated with Art Lead on what mod kit pieces worked well and which ones needed work or were missing
- Designed every aspect of the player experience (leading the player with lights and geometry, tooltip locations, AI interactions, where and when to teach the player a new mechanic)
- Worked closely with a dedicated programmer to ensure all cinematics and cutscenes worked as intended
- Created multiple post-processing volumes to enhance the player experience in all spaces
- Completed multiple lighting passes
- Constant quality assurance passes on the level, cinematics, lighting, gameplay, and AI interactions.
- I decorated the closet where the player hides in for the first time (artists were shorthanded so I volunteered to help)
Level Design Work (Level 2)
As the team's main level designer, I was put in charge of creating the layout for level 2 of our game.
List of tasks completed as Level Designer:
- Designed the layout of the entire 2nd level
- Built the three largest rooms in the 2nd level (Library, Kitchen, and Foyer)
- Distributed the construction of smaller rooms to other level designers to help speed up the creation process
- Integrated all rooms into one level
- Helped gameplay scripters problem solve and come up with interesting interactions with the AI
- Worked closely with the art team on delivering the right atmosphere with props, architecture, and lighting
- Designed the AI interaction in the kitchen, worked closely with programmers and gameplay scripters to implement desired behavior
- Completed multiple lighting passes
- Finalized gameplay essential lighting
- Completed constant quality assurance passes on level 2 and 3 modkit usage, lighting, and gameplay
- Helped artists with prop detailing whenever possible
Development Process
The level design process was pretty interesting. Before we started creating levels for this game we created an analog version of what we hoped our game would be. We tested puzzle design, level layout, and atmosphere in a mini haunted house.
Once we understood what worked I was tasked with designing a layout for the mansion that the game would take place in. After completing a layout that everyone was happy with I worked with another Level Designer to redraw the layout to scale to help the Level Design team build as quickly as possible.
After rooms were created I was tasked with stitching together all the rooms and completed basic aesthetic and lighting passes. As gameplay was refined my tasks were to alter level design and work closely with artists to help deliver the intended experience
As the game came closer to completion I was tasked with being Lead of Tutorial. I worked with the Lead Artist and a Programmer to create and deliver impactful cinematics to really set the tone for the rest of the game. I also made sure that the level design for the tutorial was directing the player in a way that drew the player forward and accounted for moments where they might try to run away.