Project 4; Experimentation of psychological horror in singleplayer explorative levels - Personal Project

Abstract

This project was all about how, as the level designer, I could create a deep fear in the player and really make them question themself. This was to be achieved with so called 'corner of the eye scares'; things that really make you question whether you saw anything at all, or experiences that make you do a double-take. This sort of psychological horror in a level with the core pillars being Isolation, Exploration and a good Complimenting Atmosphere can lead to lots of conspiracies and conversations between players who experienced these potential 'paranormal' or ARG-like experiences, as is evidenced by levels with isolation being a key feature in the past. I believed that these three pillars could make a really memorable and unique explorative experience.

The target game was Garry's Mod, as it was the easiest for me to quickly put this level together with pre-existing tools, props and logic entities as well as publish it to the public using the Steam Workshop. This means I could focus on level design, instead of wasting time doing my own programming or art; something that isn't my specialism.

Concept generation and level planning

To compliment the planned style of level, I decided to have plenty of interactable elements as to make the level more of a playground compared to your typical sandbox levels, synonymous with the target game. This sort of interactiveness of the level would make players create their own goals and journeys through the level, forcing them to explore more as to interact with these planned elements; Things like power generators (shown below in the picture carousell) can add an overarching  narrative or purpose for the player to achieve as they explore and piece together what may be happening in this supposedly empty level.  It also gives me an opportunity to tie into this generator event using the corner of the eye scare concept, such as the "ghost" in the level being able to turn the generator off when certain criteria are met - further pushing that paranoia in the player that perhaps they aren't alone. This is the sort of thing I wanted to experiment with going forward in the level, ontop of the corner of the eye scares previously mentioned in the abstract.

The initial level that I produced for this concept was just a testing level, showcasing all three pillars and interactive elements that I would take forward into a completed level. It featured a basic L-shaped corridor, which was styled as an industrial facility's basement (abandoned, of course) as to drive home the third design pillar - atmosphere. The chosen interactive element that I implemented into this test level was a power generator, fit with flashing lights and multiple levers as to make it a kind of puzzle for players to mess around with. Finally, as to fit all three pillars, I included a basic rendition of one of these corner of the eye scares. This corner of the eye scare was a figure, peeking around the corner of the L shaped corridor. Once the player looked at it, it would quickly back away from the corner and vanish - playing sound affects as it does so. I ensured that the figure was barely visible as to actually make it harder to notice, as to drive the idea that I want players to question if they even ever saw anything. 

To continue to develop this concept into a fully fledged level, I started to design a new level that could still play into the main design pillars I had set out; Isolation, Exploration and a Complimenting Atmosphere. The first thing that came to mind was to do some sort of industrial facility, with a basement and plenty of ground-level space and buildings to explore. I liked the concept at first glance, as there was a lot of freedom for the atmosphere and interactive elements I could implement. However, I also had the idea of doing a lighthouse and small village on a tidal island. This concept resonated with me much more, as the feeling of isolation could be amplified more than the abandonded industrial idea and the atmosphere felt more fitting to me. This concept, too, had seemingly been done less on the workshop compared to industrial settings - meaning it may stand out more and have a higher chance of players being drawn to it.