Wine & Bones
Wine & Bones
Black Rabbit Studios
Embedded Files
Escape a madman in the French undercity
Description: Your friend has betrayed you and locks you up in a wine cellar, to come back and kill you later. You must escape with your life and find yourself navigating the undercity of Paris through caves, catacombs, and sewers. This game is a horror, puzzle walking sim.
Purpose: This was a group student project that furthered skills in Unreal Engine 5 with a large focus on collaboration and verticality. This was also a foray into using Github in a formal setting.
Tools Used: Unreal Engine 5, Github, Photoshop, ProTools
Gameplay Video
Layout and Preproduction
During layout our group decided on the theme "The Cask of Amontillado" and each of us chose a level that fit the theme. I chose to do the catacombs under Paris because of my interest in the macabre and viewing of the film As Above, So Below (2014). The order decided on the four total levels was: Wine Cellar, Caves, Catacombs, and Sewers. My level needed a puzzle to break up the chase sequences in the two levels that surrounded mine so I designed it with a bone puzzle that required 3 skulls. I also took inspiration of the lectures on verticality and made sure to have my level be at least 2 stories high.
Holistic Design
Sound Design
Sound Design
For the holistic design element I split my recordings between foley and field recordings to get good and authentic sounds. I needed environment sounds so I recorded a fire, stone, and a gate in the field using my H1N Zoom recorder. For foley I wanted to get a mouse squeak so I used dog toys to achieve the desired sound. Once I recorded all of my sounds I took the raw sessions into Pro Tools and mastered the clips using trimming, equalizers, and fades.
Major Gameplay Beats
Players start on the middle level of the catacombs and must grab a nearby torch to navigate the darkness.
A bone altar is discovered on the bottom floor with 3 empty spots for a weighted object.
Players discover a skull nearby on the ground and can be picked up. The skull fits directly into the altar and depressed the plate.
Upstairs the player finds another skull underneath a staircase and brings it back down to the altar.
The final skull is found on the top balcony next to candles, with this the puzzle is complete.
Places all 3 skulls sets a stone mechanism in motion that opens a secret stone door behind the altar.
Behind the stone door on the altar is a key to the exit. The player grabs the key.
The play ascends the stairs one final time to reach the exit.
The player is able to unlock the exit and move on to the next level.
Postmortem
Collaboration: Due to the nature of game development being a collaborative work it is important to learn how to work in a group with others. This project allowed me to make a game with 3 others and learn better practices in working in a team. While everyone contributed and the work got done in the end, I wish early on we had planned out the distribution of work more concretely.
Verticality: Using lessons on verticality, I was able to implement multiple levels inside of the catacombs. With a size limit on the width and length of my level the verticality added depth and variety that couldn't be expressed on a flat plane. If I had more time I would have redone the stairs to not be default, but a detailed curved stairway to match the rest of the environment.
Github: Being my first time using Github in a team setting, it was a huge learning experience that is fundamental because of Github's prominence in the game development field. As a team we were able to use a single Unreal project and sync up 4 different levels by using Github. This allowed us in the end to have a seamless game experience between 4 levels. This was a good experience, but I need to do more projects in Github to become more familiar with it.
Credits
Black Rabbit Studios
Wine Cellar level design - Mercedes Hart
Caves level design - Trinity Hernandez
Catacombs level design - Lestat Smith
Sewers level design - Julianna Rhodes
Get in touch at lestat.e.smith@gmail.com
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