*Note* The reason I didn't post this earlier was because I didn't think my ideas were that good and everything had been decided upon before this... pretty much...
Thought I’d take the chance to write a bit about my ideas for the queens building.
To start off some off, we have to take into account that it’s an existing environment we’re working on, so taking a strong reference is essential in transforming such place into survival horror genre.
The initial thoughts that come to mind are dark, gloomy setting, preferably set at night time, with rain and perhaps some thunder and lightning (of course the weather would be seen outside).
I think it’s first important to look at the references taken and then pool together all our ideas of what we like and don’t like. While thinking about this we should be asking ourselves ‘is it possible?’ in which I mean is it possible to create what we are going for in the available time period we have of 11 weeks +.
I’m thinking that we should come up with extras for the level, in what I mean is how pretty much every video game level I’ve ever played hold some sort of secret(s) to it. I heard the suggestion of keys to unlock certain doors and paths within the level itself, which I’m not sure if that’s been done in the past but the idea is that it challenges the user to find them and make their way through the level. It’s a survival horror level, so basically I’m not sure that it should be free roaming (where everything is unlocked to walk through) because in that case you could just run from start to finish and the level would be over pretty quickly, its survival, so there has to be a lot more challenge than that.
Typically in horror games such as Resident Evil etc the difficulty of the games is usually hard from start to finish, it’s not one of those that starts easy and becomes of progressively hard. I think as environment Artists for this brief we should be creating something with hazards in to add difficulty to the level to and challenge. Things that come to mind would be live electrical cables, fire, traps, broken bridges/stairs possible water hazards to etc.
With it being a horror (and like I’ve said the first thing that comes to mind is darkness) I think lighting with have a big impact on the level, ideas I have in mind is flickering lights, lights switching on and off, possible thunder and lightning on the outside of the building, maybe the flash from the thunder could light up a room for a brief moment. I’ve heard that the level may start outside in the courtyard as the player would then enter the building, which I think is a good idea as it immediately makes the player want to move on into the building and explore what’s inside. Maybe the front door could close on them as they enter to add more tension, or maybe that’s a bit cliché?
I think it’s important to try and be original, look at ideas from existing horror games, pick off ideas that we like and then turn them into something we can embed into the level so we’re not just directly copying other ideas.
These are just some of the thoughts I’ve had so far, I think the planning and concepting part will show more of a clear route we want to take, like I said pooling ideas together to see what we like and don’t like in a process of elimination, leaving the things we want and the rooms that we like. I’m also thinking that it will be important to make a plan of the building, with a layout of the rooms, this will gain an idea of how they join together and where the stairs will be placed and access to upper floors is. Once this is done I think we can do some white boxing as a prototype and generate more ideas for further development to get us started , but first pitching ideas will be essential.
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