Sol Guardians

My Process

         Previous to this project, I took classes learning modeling, texturing, and Unreal Engine. I got the opportunity to finally learn blueprints and the work in the pipeline of game development. 

Ideation

         I was honored that my game pitch was chosen to be one of the final six games made in the class. This was the first time I had created and pitched a game idea as well. I based my ideas off of research into things that seemed interesting to me and other games like La Rana and Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

         The Sun Stone gives light to the Valley of Saasil and its inhabitants. Then, a mighty earthquake struck the valley, and the pieces of the Sun Stone were scattered in all directions. Without the Sun Stone, the Valley was cursed with Darkness. The only way to restore the Light was to reassemble the Stone. The Village of Guardians needed a Champion, and so Taaví was chosen to break the curse.

         Our Hero is Taaví, and you will guide them through the Valley of Saasil, a dense, overgrown jungle filled with deadly traps where 6 hidden pieces of the Sun Stone await you. Navigate a dangerous maze and scale the platformed Turix Temple. Reassemble the Stone to bring Light back to the Valley. Do you have what it takes to solve the puzzles and restore the Temple’s Light?

Game Assets 

        At the beginning of this project, I had played dozens of video games since I was little and I had studied the history of video games in school. However, I still did not fully understand what makes a game feel good. My first blockouts created a maze like structure for the player to move through. Since this was going to be a third person platformer type game, the level we started making starting out very flat. It wasn't until later that I started to incorporate an interesting variation of verticality.

        I took time to learn how to use the Unreal Engine 4 landscape tool to craft the shape of the valley.

  

Level Design

         Early level designs were based on simple ideas, but it wasn't until our team decided to give our character new abilities that changed the goal of each area. At first, it was going to be just a maze game, but after we made character abilities, we needed to create level mechanics as well. It was fun learning basic blueprinting to make the level more dynamic and interactable. 

         This was the first time I was able to do playtesting and I had to learn some hard lessons about game design. At first, it was challening to take the feedback, but soon I saw the truth after repeated playtests.

Visual Polish

         Throughout the project, we constantly used constantly had to revisit the textures and colors of our level. Our world was in a lush jungle valley. We initially made the mistake of adding too much green and brown tones, which made it too difficult for the player to gain any sense of direction.

Post Mortem

         The best thing I learned from this project was about guiding players. I didn't learn until later what a player signifier was called. However, the advise was to give players sufficient enough visual and auditory cues to understand where to go and how to play the game.

         With this advise, we added torches, checkpoints, and even flowers that glowed when you approached. The flowers stayed lit like breadcrumbs to help players remember the paths they had taken.

         I learned a lot about scope and burnout as well. However, my favorite thing that I learned was the incredible sheer volume of details that go into making a video game. It made me so much grateful to play and analyze games.