Sensitive
Pitch
You are waking up caged in the underground of a laboratory. During your researchs to find an exit, you realize that monsters have taken possession of this place
Be aware: due to virtual reality and technical difficulties, graphics and especially the overall lighting, are not what they really are. Sorry for the inconvenience.
This Project is a VR prototype made by 6 developers, 3 game designers and 3 game artists, In 7 weeks.
I have done : game design, all the Level Design and the Sound Design.
This project was greatly appreciated by the judging panel who gave us really good and instructive feedbacks !
Game Mechanics
Due to mad scientists's tests (and madness), your senses are operationnal thanks to a device that you've put on your head at the beginning of the game
You can only see well or hear well. This is it. One single game mechanic.
With it you must find the exit and understand what happens, by resolving puzzles and escaping monsters
Ennemies
You will encounter 2 types of monsters in Sensitive.
Prowler
Spotted by sound
visually discrete
Stalker
Obvious, very few noise
My Work during this project
I have done all the Level Design and the sound design. I worked closely with My Level Artist and my project manager to keep deadlines safe !
I'm going to show you my creative process to create this Level. Keep in mind, there's a lot of intentions. we only had 7 weeks to understand all the problematics of VR and work with it.
Playing claustrophobic games.
And for that, the 2 firsts Metro were a blast. A wonderful use of light and shadow. A psychological horror. a lot of sharp shapes.
It was a pleasure to discover these games and have them in reference. and I thank 4A games for creating these wonderful games.
Searching References
First i've made researchs, environment with lots of debris, noise. sharp angles. Undergound base, ancient soviet, german or french bunkers.
Now my references are done. I needed to establish a 2D Level Concept, to satisfy our gameplay and Level Design intentions. During one week I've iterated on several concepts.
I've made walkthrough, gameplay intentions and explanations.
Have a look ! (it's a top-down view)
Here's my first concept, it was a midgame gameplay situation. At this time I was not fully aware of VR problematics such as different height in VR (which can be very emetic ahah). It was abort because too difficult for the player as his first experience (even if it's a demo).
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Pitch :
The player learn to use mechanics in the first room. Then in the middle room, 2 monsters hear him as he's walking on debris and broken glasses. next, he must flee into the ventilation system.
In the end he must find a woodplank to cross a toxic zone. for that, he must pass a little container maze.
Here's my second concept, it was a midgame gameplay situation. At this time, the shape of the level (an "S") was defined, the level flow too. Corridor for extremely stressful moment (monster rushs at you). and wide room, more engimatic, with riddle, and sometimes a monster who is stalking for a prey.
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Pitch :
The player learn to use mechanics in the first (bottom right) room. Then at the intersection, a monster chase him and he must go to the big center room where the door will close behind him.
later, he must find keys to open the door to the left room. here he must find a crowbar to open th door to the upper room. he activates electricity in this room and go to the corridor (centermap).
here, a monster will chase him again and he must escape him to end the level, he will do that by lure the monster with noise toward a door that gonna close behind him.
Here's my final concept, not too different from the 2nd. I mostly changed the left room. It was approved and blocked out later !
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Blockout
I love doing blockout, it permits me to expose my vision and my thought to the 3D artists, not only to game designer, I'm always making the blockout as close as possible of the final version (in my mind of course, lots of changes happen !)
First corridor
Center room
Two parts of the left room
Here's the last tunnel before the end.
During my blockout, I started to iterate this moment. Instead of doing a straight chase like before, I can reuse assets and make a chaotic run between train, chased by the monster, with more claustrophobia. My mates loved it so it was approved !
I've also made lighting tests.
Like "Alien isolation" creative process, at the beginning, nothing was claustrophobic or frightening. But when I added lights to my blockout, it all make sense. We started playtest and it worked very well !
Et voilà ! All my blockout. Only 33% was used, because of technical problems. But the judging panel was amazed by our professionalism on searching and resolving VR problematics, on both, technical and artistic sides. We've got the highest note of the grade. But if you want my thought, I think we could have done so much more.
An artistic view
Showing you the final state of this project, more debris could have been put, but sadly not enough time !
