CABIN

Gameplay Prototype, 2023

Duration: 10 weeks

Team Size: Solo

Roles: Design, Implementation. Audio (Epidemic Sound), Animations (Mixamo), Assets (UE Marketplace)

Software Used: Unreal Engine 5, Photoshop, Miro, Figma, Google Workspaces, Premiere Pro, Notion.

Cabin is a small prototype I developed in order to explore audio, cinematics and pacing. Inspired by games such as The Quarry and P.T.

At the conclusion of a successful summer camp, the counsellors stayed one last night together, only Caleb just woke up in the Cabin alone, with no recollection of how he got there.

As Caleb is trying to recollect his thoughts and questioning what led to his adventure Lauren is attempting to contact him. Unbeknownst to Caleb, something has spooked the remaining counsellors and they are packed up and ready to leave just before sunrise. To her annoyance but not surprise, Lauren woke up to find Caleb absent. Being the headstrong leader she is, she has taken it upon herself to drive up to the Cabin and collect him personally. Now all Caleb has to do is leave.

FULL GAMEPLAY VIDEO

DESIGN PROCESS

For Cabin I wanted to build upon my existing design knowledge and make something that focuses on atmosphere. I also wanted to improve my audio implementation so I decided to incorporate spoken dialogue.

Miro was my hub for design and where I fleshed out the idea. I wanted to use themes from horror cinema, literature and symbology (see Research Page). I studied similar games and did draw-overs to deconstruct the differences and similarities, in framing between film and games.

Aside from games, I was really influenced by films from the VHS series and the work of Junji Ito - particularly embedded visual repetition and the simplicity of fear.

I decided to deliver the narrative via voicemails - this emitted the players ability to respond directly, adding to the tension whilst keeping mechanics minimal.

As the gameplay flow shows, was originally mechanically heavier and forced the player to interact and make choices but over time I took that away instead choosing to focus on narrative and atmosphere for this project

As this was a solo project I started bug tracking immediately as I was blocking out. This really helped me to refine the design, choose my priorities and polish the features I kept.

Gameplay Loops:

Miro Board:

Gameplay Flow:

Moodboard:

Research Page:

Bug Tracking:

TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT

Blockouts:

I did most of the refinement of the gameplay in the blockout stage. The metrics were really challenging - rather than repeat a section such as in P.T. I wanted to create a seamless loop. I definitely could improve on this still but I learnt a lot from this stage. It was after this stage when adding in assets, I decided to allude to Bigfoot as the threat.

Film in-game:

This was also really challenging as I have not done this before. After researching it, it was fairly simple and I am pleased with getting it to work with audio also.

Fog Material:

I am confident with Niagara so initially I developed the fog that way but realised it would be more efficient to produce it as a material that I could assign to cubes throughout the level. This really improved performance and I was pleased with the material.

Audio:

The biggest learning curve was with audio. For this project I had to implement it in a variety of ways, mix it correctly and include spatial audio. The spatial audio for the footsteps, lightbulbs and thudding noises really helped me towards the atmosphere I was aiming to create.

First-pass Blockout:

Fog Material:

Film in-game:

Audio Development:

REFLECTION

Key Takeaways

  • I was pleased with the outcome of Cabin and it was much closer to my idea than I thought I was capable of producing. My Unreal Engine 5 knowledge grew so much, this was my first project using 5 so I wanted to get straight in to the deep end and challenge myself with new areas. I also feel confident working with multiple types of audio onow and this knowledge will definitely help me design more believable scenarios.

  • I would have left myself slightly more time for set-dressing I feel that the sparse areas are what let the game down. I would also trust my knowledge more and be more ambitious with certain areas.