NEO-VERSAILLES
Painted World: Neo-Versailles is an first-person adventure puzzle rpg game with horror-esque elements in an alternative Versailles, France - Neo-Versailles.
Neo-Versailles, once known as the artistic and technological hub of the world as it is thrust into chaos as Demons of Despair emerge from the art and wreak havoc. The player takes control of an Art Keeper, one that can exorcise the Demons of Despair back into their painting vessels, turning wicked into beautiful.
Players utilize their spray can in puzzles and as an evasion method against the enemy in a high-tension atmosphere, which culminates in an exorcism at the end of the game.
Role
Duration
Team
Tools
Game Design Lead
09/2022 - 04/2023
27
Unity, C#
Game Direction
Core Pillars
My main role in this project served as both Game Director and Game Design Lead, in which I not only created all the gameplay systems and overall puzzle progression, but gave direction in regards to all aspects of the game across all departments.
I had created a set of core design pillars that would be looked to as reference by not only design, but used as the frame of reference for all disciplines, guiding the vision for our game to hit the 3 pillars for the overall player experience.
Overall Design Pillars
A Rococopunk Versailles - One of the key points of our game's vision is the alternative history approach with the steampunk twist upon it, in this case being Rococo and Steampunk in an alternative Versailles, France.
Art is the Solution - With our main player target being artists and playing out the fantasy of a magical art fighter, we designed our gameplay to play upon that player fantasy, making sure to incorporate art into our mechanics and world design.
Hauntingly Beautiful - Wanting to create a type of non-traditional horror feel, I wanted us to lean into the rococo horror mixture, to create a unsettling type of horror by juxtaposing beautiful with monstrous when it came to design of the monster and the areas of Neo-Versailles.
Game Flow
Game Flow Diagram
As the Game Design Lead as well, I created the game flow that encourages player exploration of the palace as it allows them to utilize their spray can and serve the roleplaying fantasy, which directly helps players solve puzzles, unlock new areas of the world, and get away from the enemy - The Demon of Despair - hunting them down throughout gameplay.
Content Systems Design
Gameplay Mechanics
As the Lead Game Designer on this project I lead the designers and engineers on my team by designing and defining all gameplay mechanics, reviewing and giving feedback on mechanic development with my specialization of systems and technical design allowing me to direct how to set up systems.
My other duties pertaining to systems design lay in designing and documenting all systems within the game. As well as running playtests and creating actionable tasks to iterate the systems to create our intended player experience.
Responsibilities
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Designed Control Scheme
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Created Gameplay Pillars
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Designed all gameplay systems ranging from
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Painting Mechanics
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Player Interaction
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Player Traversal
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Enemy AI
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Environmental Systems
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UI Systems
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Painting Mechanics
I designed the painting mechanics in this game to satisfy various player needs, with Sigil Casting satisfying a player's need for mastery, as they memorize and get into the rhythm of painting sigils. This also applies to their use cases - Painted World and Restoration - regarding Exploration, and Puzzling needs, respectively.
Responsibilities
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Designed painting mechanics and various use-cases
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Managed and balanced all system tuning
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Development of Sigil Casting Mechanic
Sigil Casting
When designing painting mechanics for the game, I wanted it to support the player fantasy of being an Art Keeper, and have it's motion be intuitive for artists, which is when I conceptualized the idea of Sigil Casting, which has the player hit points in a gestural and directional motion, akin to the swipe of a paintbrush, and for it to interact with paintings, creating two use cases for this overarching mechanic to be utilized by a player.
Sigil Casting Visual Design Document
Sigil Casting Use Cases
Sigil Casting Iterations
While for a fully realized game, using gestural motion on a DualShock / DualSense controller would be ideal, we had to pivot the design due to technical and time constraints. We had prototyped a button prompt system, which did not satisfy the player fantasy, but it did make the game more accessible for controllers.
Ideating upon this, the second iteration became a QTE (Quick Time Event) prompt instead, with the drawing of the sigil being visually present while also providing some challenge to players.
Sigil Casting Current Iteration
Ideal Mechanic Functionality
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Gestural motion on a DualShock / DualSense Touchpad
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Unable to achieve with technical limitations as a student project
Initial Prototype Functionality
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Button Prompts in a sequential order
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Did not provide much challenge, player fantasy of seeing the sigil not present
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Gamepad Accessibility
Iterated Prototype Functionality
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QTE Prompts in a sequential and timed order
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Provided more challenge to button prompts
Sigil Casting 2nd Iteration
Sigil Casting 3rd Iteration
Grenadier
The alternative, more tactical use for the player's spray can - the Grenadier, allows players to pressurize and lob paint blobs to colorize paintings and materialize objects to help the player explore new places as well as using it to create temporal masterpieces that deter the Demon of Despair.
Colorize
Colorizes monochrome paintings and materializes
objects from them. Allows the player to create new pathways and explore.
Grenadier Painting Use Case
Temporal Masterpiece
Erects a temporary gate made from paint that can act as a vaultable as well as a way to deter the demon's pathway
Grenadier Wall Use Case
Player Traversal
Player Movement / Traversal Visual Design Document
With the high-tension atmosphere throughout the game, combined with the player fantasy of being an Art Keeper, I wanted the game to stray away from slow horror-game movement, that used slow player speeds and limited movement in order to make enemies seem more threatening, and instead ramped up player mobility, and creating a parkour player controller that would make chase scenarios more exciting as the player weaved and bobbed through, over, and under obstructions, with the Demon of Despair tailing at their feet.
Responsibilities
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Designed player traversal system and wrote up design documentation
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Managed and balanced all system tuning for player traversal variables
Enemy AI
I designed the Enemy AI referencing Alien : Isolation. I wanted the Enemy AI to feel more than a cat & mouse game where the enemy is always chasing, through the Enemy AI's player location awareness, where it will randomly travel to a player's last marked location.
I wanted it to make the player feel powerless in the presence of power, by allowing the Enemy to destroy any blockades the player draws up using their spray can.
Enemy AI Example
Enemy AI Diagram
Responsibilities
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Managed and balanced all system tunings
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Created custom tools for enemy path
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Designed and implemented Enemy AI Behavior Detection system
When it came to designing the enemy's detection system, I wanted it to be a mixture of both FOV-based detection and proximity-based detection in order to get the enemy to respond to the player in a variety of situations.
I wanted to ensure that the enemy did not always just attack the player on sight, by having certain zones indicated for the enemy to perform a scan action - where they shifted their FOV angle left and right 45 degrees from the center.
Puzzle Design
Tutorialization + Player Mastery
Macro Puzzle Design Document
I created a macro design document that gave me a clearer view of the overall story from both a narrative and gameplay standpoint. Looking at the higher overview of the gameplay mechanics I intended to be within the demo, I designed all 10 puzzles and gameplay beats to teach players new mechanics, master them, introduce a new mechanic, and layer.
Responsibilities
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Overall Puzzle Design & Gameplay / Narrative Flow
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Puzzle Design Breakdowns
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Macro-Gameplay Design
Level Design
Blockouts
I had my hand in some of the blockouts seen within the game. I had done the level design blockout for 6 out of the 10 spaces mainly tackling the Elevator Room, Drawing Room, Throne Room, Elisa's Bedroom, the Queen's Chambers, and other parts of the Palace Interior while also giving regular critique and direction to the other designers on the team in my role of the Game Design Lead & Director.
I had worked to create and give direction on how to create levels that would uphold our overall game vision.
Drawing Room
Initial Blockout
Final Blockout
When it came to blocking out the Drawing Room space, I had changed the layout of the space from the initial paper maps one of the designers did in order to create more pathways for the player to explore and weave in and out of, which increased the tension within the space as the Demon of Despair actively patrolled the area in search of the player, creating a fun hiding tactic for this space. Previously the space was wide and open, with not much room for sneaking and hiding from the Demon of Despair, my changes during the blockout phase created a more tight space that better fit with the gameplay beats. Players at this point are introduced to the Restoration mechanic after having had learned about interactions with heavy objects and using them to solve puzzles from the Elevator Room space. The Drawing Room adds onto the simple player interaction mechanic by layering it on top of the painting thematic, to make player progression feel organic.
The focal POI of the Drawing Room, is the ornate painting stand with a plaque and the chandelier. During the gameplay, the player must find the correct painting associated with the plaque's description, restore it, and cast the Painted World Sigil to advance to the next room.
Responsibilities
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Level Blockout and Iteration
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Enemy Pathing and Iteration
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Set Dressing
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Lighting
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Item Placement
Additional Contributors
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Environment Art: Serena Lee,
Astrid Long, & Cris Jin
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Concept Art: Miles Ogden & Tiffany Book
Elisa's Bedroom
Drag Sliders to View
Elisa's Bedroom Space
Small Living Space 02
Small Living Space 01
Top View Layout
For Elisa's Bedroom, I had come on after the initial rough blockout of the shape had been done, and iterated upon the space by downsizing to better fit gameplay metrics, as well as did the set dressing, item placement, and lighting passes. With the space, I wanted to introduce players to the game's world and include nods to mechanics the player would be introduced to later in the game.
Overall, I wanted players to use this space to get into the headspace of the player character and their call to action through environmental storytelling, with things like lore logs and a small scripted event that has the player see the Demon of Despair scurry out of the room, in a similar way to the introduction of Splicers in Bioshock.
This was a space originally blocked out by another designer, in which I had made changes after playtesting in the space regarding scale, it initially feeling too large, and had gone on to do the art and lighting passes on it as well to fully realize the space and its storytelling.
Responsibilities
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Level Blockout and Iteration
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Set Dressing
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Lighting
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Item Placement
Additional Contributors
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Environment Art: Serena Lee,
Astrid Long, & Cris Jin
Queen's Chambers
Queen's Chambers Blockout
For the Queen's Chambers, I had heavily drawn from the layout of Queen Marie-Antoinette's Private Chambers, by using the irregularly-shaped walls to create a less boxy environment and for it to naturally draw the player towards different sections of the bedroom in gameplay.
The intention of this space is to incentivize the player to explore and find out more about the world when they're in the beginning section of the game, by including in different spots that tell the fate of her family and secrets for the player to uncover through interaction with objects.
Responsibilities
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Level Blockout and Iteration
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Set Dressing
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Item Placement
Additional Contributors
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Environment Art: Cris Jin
Elevator Room
Initial Blockout
Second Pass Blockout
For the Elevator Room, I wanted to focus more on the puzzle aspects of the game, in order to create a balance from the previous high-intensity chase beat from earlier within the game, to mix up the gameplay while creating a down-beat that still challenges the player. I wanted to teach the player about interactions with heavy objects in regards to puzzle interactions, and create multiple moments to do so by having the player solve 3 different gear puzzles that link together. Different-sized gears placed around would activate various machinery that progress the player to the next space.
The biggest challenge with this space was how to create puzzles and pathing that would incentive the player to backtrack based on their intuition, as well as making the different puzzles clear to see as interactable and the path to them linear within the semi-open layout. I changed the layout from the initial paper maps and orthographic to better path the players towards the overarching goal of powering the elevator as well as the design and contextualization of the different lock & key type puzzles. Due to scope, this level was cut from the vertical slice demo.
Responsibilities
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Level Blockout and Iteration
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Lighting
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Item Placement
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Environmental Scripting
Additional Contributors
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Environment Art: Astrid Long
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Concept Art: Tiffany Book & Meghan Thong
Technical Design
Design Tooling
I created design tools to be used by the Level Designers in order to make item placement and creating Enemy Patrol Paths easy with minimal setup for efficiency.
Enemy AI Pathing Tool
The Enemy AI Pathing Tool makes creating enemy AI waypoint paths for designers easy to use through automated path drawing and addition to the Enemy AI patrol system.
Pathing Tool in Editor
Journal Gameplay Objects
The Journal Gameplay Object makes journal placement easy to set-up for designers to spread lore gameplay objects in levels.
Journal Object in Editor
Shaders
I created shaders to be used modularly by Level Designers and Environment Artists in order to make level building more efficient and optimized. I had also created VFX and visual polish for the Painted World painting mechanic based upon playtesting feedback.
Interior Mapping
The interior mapping shader allows our game to be more efficient and optimized by having fake exteriors / interiors.
Interior Mapping Example
Shader Graph
Liquid
The liquid shader allows for our in game health and paint to have an illusion of physics and movement, without the need for extra modeling or animation work.
Position-Based Liquid Example
Shader Graph
Auto-Tiling
Needing an auto-tiling shader, I created the Auto-Tiling shader to make the level blockout / art pass process efficient for designers and environment artists.
Auto-Tiling Example
Shader Graph
