Summary
Pagophobia – the fear of ice and/or frost.
The player starts the game as they crash land their spaceship on a snowy planet and enter what appears to be a research facility. It appears to have been abandoned and feels rather eerie…
The game’s objective is to escape
this facility that the player is stranded on. The player can explore
various parts of the game’s story by examining interactables, where the
narrative can be unearthed.
The level’s design is linear to accommodate the
horror and to scare the player, filling them with tension and
dread at the appropriate moments. The levels can be explored to uncover the
narrative through environmental storytelling
The video is the introduction to the game, settling the player in before the gameplay starts.
Clips
Development and Production
I created a Gantt Chart in Excel to manage the development and production processes in order to meet our targets and deadlines. This was integral to our teamwork and being able to communicate the natural flow of ideas at the most crucial of times, depending on where we were at in the project.
We agreed to working in an Agile workflow, where we were all working on a task and/or assisting each other where necessary. On a weekly basis, I managed Scrum style meetings to examine everyone's individual progress and status with the project.
Prototyping and Level Design
I spearheaded the pre-production phase of the project by assigning roles to those in the team and then creating the initial Lo-fi (Low Fidelity) Prototype of the game’s Level Design, the most integral part of this experience.
I then iterated on it until everyone on the team was satisfied about the flow of game and the level that results from that. I then transitioned into helping block out the level in Unreal Engine 4. This process included prototyping the enemy encounters and respawn points in case of any adjustments we had to make as we translated a 2D prototype to 3D
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Mid – LoFi Level Design Legend
Green arrows indicate main progression
Overview of Level Blockout in Unreal
Sector 1 – Floor 1 Blockout
Overview of game map/setting
Asset blocks off progression – Level is designed to be interconnected facility
UI and UX
We utilised Adobe Photoshop to create a consistent typography all across the game’s User Interface. The consistency helps to make project feel polished and memorable.
Overall, these UI elements were kept minimal to enhance the player’s immersion and tension. This resulted in emphasising sounds and effects, which was a match for the minimalistic User Experience we had envisioned for the project from the start.
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Evolution of logo design
Instructions are designed according to consistent design tenets
Narrative Design and Lore
We wanted the player to experience the game’s narrative by designing the level to elicit environmental storytelling and finding interactable diary logs/‘notes’. I wrote these entries based on the discussions we had in preproduction in regards to the flow of the game and the narrative.
Exploring the narrative like this was a conscious decision to immerse the player within the setting. This is similar to the horror game series Slender Man, however the player is not required to collect the notes as a form of progression.
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Playtesting Procedure
I helped to conduct the playtests after most of the scripts had been implemented for intended basic functionality. We had testers play through the game where we watched them, but provided no input.
After the playtest, we conducted a 1-on-1 interview with the tester, asking them open ended questions that caused them to recollect their experience with the game and what they liked or disliked about it. This helped us to understand what elements they appreciate most when playing horror games and what stood out to them in this game.
Lastly, we provided them with a questionnaire (Likert Scale) and an extra comments section to ascertain agreement and expand upon opinion towards metrics of specific design elements. This helped to collect more standardised data that isn't as suitable to ask about in the previous open ended interview. The prior interview's focus was more so a personal exploration into what they either appreciated or didn't appreciate about the game.
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You can play Pagophobia by clicking here (it's a 1.6GB ZIP download and make sure to extract it all for it to run as intended).