Don't Look Down dev blog

Don't look Down is my final major project during university.

It is to be fully designed and developed by me over a 12 week period.

Art and audio assets will be partially edited and/or created but otherwise sourced from various reputable asset markets.

All design and scripting work will be done by me in Unreal Engine 5 and various other software to support that.

Don't Look Down is a PSX inspired survival horror game where the player has to navigate a seemingly never ending construction site and figure out how to get back home.

Game Design Document

For a more detailed explanation of the design of this game refer to the GDD.

Week 1:

During my first week of development I wanted to focus on getting my visual style down as that was important due to the game being inspired by PS1 titles.

As well as my core mechanics. In this video I quickly demonstrate:

- Post processing effects

- Player and camera movement

- Flashlight and Hammer interaction

- Interactable physics objects

- Climbable ladders

- Moving and attacking enemy AI

It was important to me that I got the enemy AI done in the first week so I could fine tune it later based on what the level requirements would need during development, however the initial behaviours I have created are

- Idle

- Patrol to points

- Patrol randomly

- Chase Player

- Attack player

- Search for player

As my game is a horror game it is important I have a complex AI that can provide a challenge for the player so they have something to be frightened of throughout the game.

Week 2:

During my second week I decided to start working on the journal system and UI elements to go along side it. This did end up expanding into doing all of the UI elements throughout the week.

The first thing I wanted to implement was a way for the player to save notes they found throughout the game so the could go back and read through them. I achieved this by saving the information found on a note in a name map that saved a string.

I then pushed this into a list that gets added to whenever a note is picked up.

I got this feature working faster than I expected to so I decided to work on the main menu so I had somewhere I could setup settings, save game etc.

The logic for the menu ended up being quite simple however, I spent a lot of time planning the layout and acquiring assets that fit the tone of the game and looked nice at the same time.

The display and audio settings ended up being quite easy to implement however I faced a good amount of challenge when setting up the logic for rebind-able controls. I was not quite comfortable with Unreal Engine 5s enhanced input system yet so I stumbled a lot in this process but I did achieve what I wanted in the end.

After setting up the main menu I also spent some time making the pause menu more cohesive in appearance to the main menu.

Week 3:

This week it was pointed out to me that the player would likely think they could use the hammer as a weapon throughout the game. While I did not initially think about this I did realise that was probably a good assumption so I decided to re-design my enemy AI to take that into account.

The enemy now has an 'Enraged' mode. This happens if the player decides to hit the enemy with the hammer. The enemy will get stunned for a short amount of time before going enraged, as shown in the video above.

While in enraged the enemy AI has increased movement speed and also knows where you are until the enraged mode has ended. I thought this could have been a good way of providing a nice last resort for the player if they allow themselves to get cornered from the AI during the game.

Additionally, this week I also decided to go on a hunt for suitable asset packs I could use. While it was quite difficult to find 'realistic' low poly assets. I ended up using a higher poly asset pack and manually editing the texture resolution to give it a more PSX look.

I also have started to design the beginning levels. These are mainly just block-outs however, they will be filled with environmental props for the player to look at and explore around.

While each levels function could be realistically completed very quickly, the player is intending to explore and look around to help build the atmosphere.

The last thing I did this week was also import more sounds to the game.

Level Design Document

Week 4:

This week I focused largely on the level design of my game. There is not as much done this week in terms of overall game development but I have blocked out levels as seen in the image above, as well as documented them.

While developing this I cut my first level into four different sections and gave them an individual goal that would be used to teach the player the game while also building up a 'horror' atmosphere.

I started with paper sketches so I could get a general feel for the shape of each section and when I was happy with how it was I would move this into a more official digital image that I could use to label where specific level elements would go and also so I could dictate the critical path.

Then I would move onto the block out to get a better sense of space and where I should place things and iterated on my design to feel better to play throughout.

Once I was happyy with how the levels felt I would use my asset pack to populate and decorate the levels to make them feel more like an actual place and to help increase the atmosphere.

One thing I specifically found quite challenging was setting up the lighting as this was not something I have had to focus on a lot in prior projects, but I eventually got to a point I was happy with.

For further detail and imagery please refer to the level design document that I will have editable. However, this is a work in-progress and may change over the course of development.