Camping Project

I created a walking simulator where you play as a camper who wakes up and discovers a trail of dead animals leading to a police base with deceased personnel. The level is inspired by open-world shooter games such as ‘Red Dead Redemption’, ‘Far Cry’ and ‘Just Cause’ sharing similar mechanics and narratives. The theme of ‘a journey’ is represented as an iconic destination in a north American forest surrounded by a lake and mountains, a fetching environmental narrative with a trail of dead corpses and a curious procedural generation in which the player can explore the environment to see extra details. I wanted to create a sense of mystery, intrigue as well as fear as players would witness deceased people at the end of the map and dead animals on the trail but living ones on the high ground and around the campsite. Regarding the ‘iconic destination’ of a North American forest I made a walking simulator that involved following a trail of dead animals and exploring a limited space. ‘Most lack puzzles or any sort of barrier to experiencing the narrative, with the exception of finding objects. You cannot fail a task in a way that forces you to repeat it, and you cannot die. Most of these games prioritize some kind of storytelling’ (Clark 2017, p. 1). The ‘fetching environmental narrative’ involves playing as a camper and finding out that the animal and human corpses were a wicked scheme plotted by a devious group or a master criminal. ‘level designers can utilize the unique opportunities games present both to convey pre-created stories with their levels and to allow opportunities for players to create their own stories through gameplay’ (Totten 2014, p. 265). The level is mostly a ‘curious procedural generation’ in which players can explore a space with little interactions in terms of texture, lighting, space, sound, and form. ‘Lighting has the power to communicate the atmosphere to the player … Lighting has the capacity to bring life to a group of objects… to the next level of quality… It creates and enhances the ambience. It augments the three-dimensional feel of objects, creates composition and balance to lead the player’s eyes around’ (De Jong 2008, p. 110). ‘Sounds have two purposes. They aid and enhance the gameplay… and they are meant to enrich and aid the execution of the theme, story, and atmosphere’ (De Jong 2008, p. 123). I used the terrain editor, environmental skyboxes, and assets such as forest animals, trees, terrains, camping equipment, water shaders, mist, sound effects, police officers, police vehicles and the fps controller to create a realistic atmospheric environment. The terrain editor was used to sculpt the terrain and apply ground textures, trees, grass and water shaders, the campsite involved a tent, chair, table, campfire, sleeping bag and four-wheel-drive, the industrial police base was guarded by police officers that fell and some animals would die while others remained alive. I discarded a custom hdri lightbox for a premade one, I replaced some free assets with purchased vehicle assets, and I also discarded a gun asset that ruined my project file, so I had to export it to another project. I started my design by brainstorming ideas, creating concepts, and building with the terrain editor. I had to resculpt the terrain several times to get the desired result and align with the assets to form a forest/campsite/police base environment. I created a playable level build with dramatic orchestral music and an atmospheric environment; however, the animals, campsite, buildings, vehicles, and people cannot be interacted with in depth. After the playtesting session I added some sound effects such as wind for the dust particles at the police base and bird sound effects throughout the level to create ambient noise in the environment. During this phase I also removed some police cars and created multiple copies of police vehicles to emphasize repetition and I also removed some police officers that were overused around the base. Grass textures were increased in height to better represent a forest environment, lighting was dimmed to emphasize the mood and dead police officers with motorbikes were added on the trail to link the start to the end of the level. The beginning is a campsite surrounded by animals, trees and a lake covered with fog that engulfed the lower ground to obstruct the players vision when walking on the trail. The player must follow a trail of dead animals or explore the higher ground for extra details but there are invisible boundaries in the way. The deceased police officers who fell off the motorbikes adds suspense to the level and links the start, middle and end of the level. The end of the rocky track leads to a police base with police cars, motorcycles and even helicopters. The level is separated by open spaces, grassy hills, trees, animals, bumpy pathways, and infrastructure. The player can have a look at all the different animals in the landscape as well as around buildings in the police base and witness a sense of realism captured in the environment. Players are engaged through the form of the terrain and assets, texture of the environment, harmonious and contrasting colour schemes to emphasize realism, and space to give a sense of exploration and direction. Players would have to move at a slow pace or at running speed to act more realistically with a bumpy surface and emphasize uncomfortably where the pathway gives direction to an architectural area at the end. The fog, hills, grass, trees, and infrastructure help break up the sections of the level to emphasize depth. There are invisible walls surrounding the area to prevent the player from straying too far or point them in the right direction to explore. The arrow keys and W, A, S and D keys are used to walk, while holding the ‘shift’ key the player can run and the ‘space’ bar is used for jumping. Memorable moments involve the foggy lake and mountainous forest skybox at the campsite to emphasize the depth and realism of a North American forest. The dead animals on the track as well as deceased police officers at the police base are distinctly earie and off-putting instilling a sense of tension, fear, and drama. The wolves in the hills and crocodiles around the map are menacing but offer no threat. The application of the ‘Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare: Main Menu Theme’ (London Philharmonic Orchestra & Skeet 2011) plays in the background to create a sense of seriousness, apprehension, and drama while the environment was dimly lit to enhance dark but peculiar overtones. Other sound effects like birds chirping, wind sounds for the dust storm and footsteps for the player were used to emphasize depth, ambience, and realism. I was inspired by some movies like ‘Rambo’ and ‘Predator’ where something strange and gloomy would happen to break the silence. There were weapons in the back of the car, but they were unusable as exploration was the key with an action movie vibe. Assets such as a daytime mountainous background, fog, lake, campsite, forest trees, grass, dangerous animals, the remnants of death are reminiscent of action thriller movies which were arranged in an organic manner. The story is about being a camper and exploring the forest environment after waking up to discover deceased animals as breadcrumbs leading to a crime scene at the police base committed by someone, something, or a mysterious group. There are bird sound effects to accompany the mysterious forest, campsite and police base and there are footsteps emitted by the player as they walk, run, or jump to demonstrate realism. There is a wind sound effect applied to the dust storm at the police base that gets louder as the player draws nearer to emphasize distance and atmosphere. Visually the animals, trees, textures, terrain, and lighting emphasize the chance to explore through an organic environment. This is prevalent especially in objects that are solid because they demonstrate a sense of interactivity and depth to motivate exploration. I would like to reflect on how much I tried to perfect my level to make it as realistic as possible and to function well coding wise. I had a lot of assistance from the lecturer and students on discord to point me in the right direction. Issues involve bugs when working with project files on ‘Drop-Box’ which I had transfer to the c-drive to function more appropriately and altering the code when using standard assets. I also have a problem compressing my project files folder as it has a lot of assets, but the build folder and Artist statement are fine.