Holding On
The game design module for my Masters program at Kingston University required us to create a prototype for a game design idea. We were free to choose the topic and tools. Do check out my blog to see my development process.
Topic & Role
Highlights of the project:​ Serious Game on depression caused by miscarriage, Progression through stealth
Team Size: Individual
Prototype Footage
Holding On is 3D stealth game on a serious topic, that intends to raise awareness in regards with depression, especially the ones faced by mothers who miscarry. Through this game, players discover the daily struggles faced by a young mother facing a condition where they know they'll miscarry, and by dealing with the enemies representing the struggles.
Objective of the game is to make it from starting point to the end point, while being undetected. They can walk around in the level, interact with story items, hide using a cover system, and distract enemies by either throwing the light orbs that they have or by tampering with lamps.
If the player gets detected by enemies, they need to find cover to lose them, since the enemies will keep chasing the player.
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Game Design - Plot, Mechanics, Interactions
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Level Design - Placements of enemies, covers
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Maintaining blog
Tools used: Unreal, MS Word, MS Powerpoint, Draw.io
Researching
Our module was introduced to us, along with a theme - "Shadows and myths", which was optional. This gave me an idea for accommodating lights and stealth in my concept. But I didn't want to make a basic stealth game, but instead try using it to send a message. This lead to my motivation behind choosing this topic, which was simply due to reading an article on miscarriage on Reddit, and this lead to further exploration of different conditions and struggles that females went through during this process.
Design Process
I started crafting the story and decided to keep it simple so the message can be delivered accurately. Most of the narrative was to be conveyed as the player progressed through the level. So upon choosing the medical condition, I went ahead with keeping my main character as a young woman, who is trying to live her daily life, and is aware that of the fact that she will lose her unborn kid.
The physical setting was chosen to be just one room, and the story was divided into four chapters - Sadness, Frustration, Helplessness, and Acceptance.
The enemies were a representation of her negative thoughts, and this was best showcased in the form of rats.
Story events and chapters
The finalized mechanics were - Cover system to hide from enemies, simple walking, interaction with story items, throwing light orbs or tamper with lamps to distract enemies and make way.
To make sure that the player kept moving, the game screen would start growing dark, eventually ending up in a game over situation.
Levels and Progression
The next step was building the planned level and understanding how the progression could be shown visually as well. The game's setting was planned to be a studio apartment, that was reliant on funky lights and a lot of darkness.
Initial setup with furnitures
Instead of making the level difficult by just adding more enemies, it was decided to make the same setting longer and cluttered, which eventually increases the difficulty, since the player will have to maneuver around a lot more as they progress and complete each chapter. The lighting also changes, moving towards blue to red, hence showcasing the intensifying feelings of the character. The pictures below showcase how each chapter differs.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 4
Prototype
My choice of engine for the development of this project was Unreal Engine. This was my first experience with developing a full scale prototype, and managed to program couple of mechanics through blueprinting. For the prototype, I managed to blueprint simple key based interactions, throwing light orbs around, interacting with light sources in game and tampering their brightness, along with random enemy movement. I couldn't add in enemy patrol paths due to time limit. The cover system is still a work in progress.
The pictures below showcase the glimpses of the blueprint and the result of the dialogue interaction.
Dialogue Blueprint
Dialogue Interaction
Here is a glimpse of the light orb mechanic, both blueprint and the resultant. This includes throwing the light orbsand collecting them back, the economy, and tamper in-game light sources.
Orbs being used to tamper light source
Orbs throwing/collection
Orbs blueprint