Level Design
Layout :
- The playground, based upon US streehouses, is separated into different rooms (and planned two floors), each with their own ambience and story, to make the player more immersed.
- This choice helps the player investigating more easily, with distinct rooms, set color patterns.
- The top-down view, while making the immersion harder, helps understanding the layout quickly and allows faster progression & movement, going back to our "Arcade" Jam theme.
- Blockers :
- Most big furnitures and door acts both as player blocker and light blocker. The idea behind these is to make lights more present while making the exploring more tense and scary.
- This also forces the player to move and place their UV device strategically so it can cover as much area as possible.
- On top of that, these add an interesting flavour to the escape part of the game. Once the player takes a picture of the ghost or reaches maximum anger, the ghost will chase them quickly. During this phase, the player has to run, and the blockers add a dodging component.
Sound Design
While behing limited in time and resources due to the Jam context, I gave particular attention to sounds and music, as it's a major element to render the heavy and tense feeling.
Sounds are sharp, heavy and with 3D spacialization to add depth to the layout, an other dimension. The player doesn't only investigate with his eyes, but also with their ears.