Descend
Descend is a single player action-horror game created in 10 weeks by a team of five people. I lead the creation the game's systems and mechanics, as well as co-created its level design. I also worked on the technical art, such as many of the materials and all of the particle effects. Take a look at our website at the link below!
Game Designer and Technical Artist:
As the Lead Designer on Technical Artist on Descend, my tasks include:
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Designing core mechanics
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Writing and updating design documentation
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Conducting and analyzing playtests
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Asset implementation
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Testing mechanics and bugfixes
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Creating particle FX using Cascade
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Creating dynamic materials and UI using UE4 material editor
Software used:
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Unreal Engine 4
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Zbrush
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Maya
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Adobe Photoshop
Designing Something Different:
The core mechanic of Descend was turning the concepts of light and darkness in a horror game on its head, making the player feel safer in the darkness than in the light. The original idea was to make the player harder for the enemies to detect in the dark than in the light. We quickly realized that it was too simple to intrigue our players.
I offered a new idea: making the enemies invisible in direct light and visible in the darkness. This new game mechanic showed an immediate change in our players. They reported being more scared during playtests and having much more fun during their time playing the game. Once we made sure that she core mechanic was fun and engaging, we built our level and the rest of our mechanics around it, creating a heart-pounding experience.
Narrative Design:
Because of our tight deadlines, we decided that telling the story we wanted to tell had to be done through environmental storytelling and giving the game two endings. We worked with our 3D and 2D artists to create an environment full of storytelling elements that the player could piece together as they played the game. For multiple endings, we placed story elements around the map that would both give the player more clues as to what the story and start the next level. If the player found all of these story elements, they would get the "Good" ending and have all of the pieces of the story they needed to know exactly what happened in the house's dark past.