Unreal Engine 5
Narrative Experience
Context & Constraints
Provide a level design experience with an emphasis on navigation and storytelling
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The experience has to support a narrative experience with at least two story levels :
â—‹ one easily understood and one requiring more observation
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â—‹ Understanding of a past event through the environment
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â—‹ Raise two contrasting emotions through the environment and/or space
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Deadline : Three weeks
Intentions
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Show the player a level and a story about war
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How it can impact a person psychologically
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Show how hard it can be to go back home and live a normal life
For the map :
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I wanted the physical layout of the map to reflect the mental state of that person
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Clearly see two contrasting environments clash with each other as the character of the story struggles to stay in the present.
Architecture & Navigation
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Divided the map in two sections both leading to the same train track blocked by derailed wagons.
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I wanted the story to begin and end on that track but to make the player go around it to fully comprehend the character’s struggle.
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
The first section is all about war
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Give the player a claustrophobic feeling by making them go through tight and dark corridors
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Enter underground bunkers and get a glimpse of what the character went through
Guidance in the first section :
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Framing the objective
was something that I kept in mind throughout the level
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Used lights and props such as debris on the floor or sandbags to guide the player
Describe your image
Describe your image
The second section continues outside the house:
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The player jumps down and loops back to both the dining room and the train track
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I wanted to give the player a vantage point where they could see the area they first started in
Story Through Environement
In the first section, the player immediately spots war-related props such as sandbags, barricades, and crates.
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Debris & Barricades
Crates & War props
The lighting is also poor and flickering.
I used dark and dirty placeholder materials on the walls and floors to better communicate my first level of storytelling.
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Barricades & Sandbags
Flickering lights
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Used three words that represent the character’s thoughts and feelings
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Show his inner conflict
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I wanted a bright emissive text to make the words clash and stand out in their environment.​​​
Describe your image
The garden
The toys
The second level of storytelling is about the character’s children.
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Used children’s toys and flowers to create a cute and calm feeling for the player
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Create a drastic difference in the placeholder materials to better communicate the time-lapse in the story
The materials
Lastly, I wanted the two sections to clash with each other
reflect that the character might be physically in an environment but mentally he’s somewhere else.
To fulfill my intentions I used multiple props like:
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the tank in the dining room as a way to force the player around
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the sandbags in the staircase
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the toys in the bunker
Describe your image
Improvements
If I had to start over:
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I would give the player more choices
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Make a bigger bunker underground that could’ve led the player to the graveyard or create another path to the house
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Expand the house by building a basement or a backyard, giving it more life while reducing the linearity of this section.
That would have reinforced the dark, claustrophobic feeling that I wanted while giving the player more freedom in his navigation.
Resources
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Maya
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Quixel Bridge
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Unreal Asset Store
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Free low-poly FBX models(The car, the tank, the bed)