ShadowBringer

Gameplay & Narrative designer

Unreal Engine 4

22 Members team
(September 2020 - December 2021)

Takes on the role of a shadow monster, awakened with no recollection of the past in a dark and tense underground research facility. Discover the truth, stay off the light, and find a way out.

Responsibilities:

Design core stealth mechanics around the concept of light and shadow, which play a major part as the foundation of environment and level design.
Design character abilities (teleportation, takedown, and scanning vision) that help the players get around the level, avoid detection and escape the hunt.
Co-develop AI behaviors and player detection model alongside programmers and artists. This includes designing how the AI reacts to the players in different states (unaware, suspicious, investigate, and hunt) and how fast the AI can perceive and reacts to the player's presence.
Take ownership of worldbuilding and original game concept, which act as an art and design direction of the project.
Author player dialogues and collectible texts that give more insight into the story, as well as writing barks for AI.
Lead the team through development, guiding art and design disciplines to ensure a cohesive experience and timely delivery of the project.
Onboard new team members and bring them up to speed on development status, tools, and work pipelines.

Summary

Gameplay Designer

Core gameplay and setting

When I first thought of the game's concept, I wanted to put highlight the aspect of light and shadow in this game.

I did so by making bright light damage the player, urging them to stay in the dark. The contrast of bright light and dark environment made it easy to distinguish between safe and dangerous zones apart.

Enemies in this game are equipped with flashlights and flash shields, allowing players to perceive them as a threat and learn how to deal with them at a glance. With the threats of enemies and light obstructing the player, I gave the players 3 tools; A wallhack vision, a short teleport, and an ability to take down enemies.

With all those aspects combined, they created a gameplay loop where players can use their abilities to scout for threats, maneuver around them, and take out threats along the way to freedom.

ShadowBringer - Gameplay

Light & Shadow

As a shadow monster, light is the bane of your existence. The hazard zones are clearly communicated via intense bright light while safe zones are generally darker or has some color tint to them.

AI Behaviors and Detection System

Working with programmers and artists, we talked about the best way we can make the human enemies feel like a threat to the player that is a literal monster. We settled with the enemies being security personnel of the organization behind the creation of the player. They will guard and patrol key areas, as well as hunt the player down when they are spotted.

I mapped their behavior flowchart, like how they transition from neutral to the suspicious or hunting stage. The charts were then used as a base discussion material between me and the programmer in how we implemented their behavior tree.

I also worked on balancing detection rate of enemy, making them feel believable but still feels possible to slip by. Using agent awareness model, I assigned detection rating for each area in front of AI enemy. For example, staying directly in front of the AI will dramatically increases detection gauge, but staying in the edge of their vision cone will increase detection gauge slower.

Initial Behavior Flowchart

Initial behavior flowcharts for Guard AI that I designed for the programmers. The chart includes 3 states of alertness and reaction to different events like spotting the player or unconscious body.

Narrative Designer

Player conflicts and Worldbuilding

With the concept of light hurting the players, I thought of a shadowy creature that lurks around in the darkness. I took inspiration from Marvel's Venom and Carrion, merging them into a hybrid of human and symbiote that are weak to light.

Stories are not the focus of this game, but they provide background info and give players a sense of purpose and goal.

The main narrative of the game is revealed through conversations that the human host has with the symbiote forcefully planted in their body. Furthermore, collectibles like diaries, journals, and research logs helped build the world from a different perspective.