Concept art

This is the concept for the players starting point. the colors being dull is intentional to express the feeling of agony that the story depicts. The decaying buildings in the back are a representation of the city that the main character (nathan) used to live in. Seeing as the game takes place with the character as a ghost realizing what he has done and being basically a nightmare I felt it to be appropriate. 

This is a concept of the gazebo where Nathan killed his wife, I personally wish I had the original to post but due to hard drive failure on my other computer it was corrupted. overall i feel it represents the general idea i wish it flowed together a little bit better and the lighting showed the emotion i was going for but all in all i dont think it came out to terrible for a last minute do over.

 This is a screen shot of my mesh list and original geometry place holder names, currently this is the bare minimum but if time allows I would like to add more variety while still keeping modularity.

geometry place holding part 2

 as of now I am working more in the kismet editor for the switches, overall its not to difficult im rather enjoying it and found some great descriptive resources online. I have run into some problems, having announcements come up while at the same time having a camera animation happen, as well as having the annoucements show for a longer period of time so the player can read them without rushing. Another problem with announcements is having them word wrap as 2 of them are traveling off the screen. The final issue is having  the light I want to move after a camera animation actually move and setting the delay. For right now I am done for this week, i am happy with my progress the level looks good and interesting the lighting is ok for right now it will of course change once the actual geometry is placed. The triggers and lights are working as wanted and the problems I am having should just be simple fixes or just slight adding of assets to the kismet editor.

Geometry Place Holder

This week its finally time for the building of the level, place holder objects anyway. I am currently in the process of placing the geometry for the level, after doing the reading on how important grid set up is I've decided to change the shape of the level to something more modular. However to keep the space interesting the objects that are not directly tied to the objective will have some random placement to make the cast shadows and overall appeal of the level more natural and interesting.

Map/Puzzle Flow

This is the set up i have in mind for the map, as of right now its dumbed down a bit from the Prototype as to allow room to explore but not to much as to get lost from the objective. To achieve this even further I may shrink the size of the set of trees in the upper right corner.

This is a flow chart of the puzzle set up as well as the light triggers and emotional aims at the different events. It is more simple than i would like it to be but due to time constraints I would rather have a completed puzzle than an incomplete one. For right now this is flow chart 1.0 if I am able to manage time properly I may add more to it. 

Prototyping

While making the prototype I found it difficult to make an interesting game space that wasn't so big you get lost in as to something so simple you lose interest. I'm trying to find that happy medium.

With the map drawn in its basic layout I'm trying to plan where the places of interest are in such a way that I don't make it to linear but don't set it up with so much back tracking that the player also loses interest. I plan to do this with lighting, making it so that the player will be able to explore the map but after finding one clue being able to easily track down the other from a distance but not from the other side of the map.

Addition:

To the map I decided to just use a legend seeing as how thin the paper is that it might ruin the map if I use markers on it.

Story: The story of the character your playing as is that he was once a proud rich man, his name is Nathan Poe.
He had a wife, Crystal, and a wonderful life but he was plagued by a second personality. The personality was uncontrollable and he was never aware of it, others noticed something was off but nothing too odd to mention.
      The worst folly of this was the alternate personality was its problem with anger, it would lash out at the smallest things, and became to much. He murdered his wife and was sentenced to death. During these events Nathan was clueless as to what had happened because the personality had fully taken over. until he believes to have come back from the dead and must figure out what has happened to him and why.

Design Document

Laudomia; Cities and the Dead

Game Space: The graveyard next to the city.

Player goal: find out why you're there and who you are.

Player Motivation: the player reads at the start they don't remember anything, including who they are, or why they are there.

The player should start the game creeped out and curious, wanting to solve the puzzle to realize why your there. The emotion at the end of solving the puzzle would be surprised at the reason why you are in this part of the city.

Puzzle: the player searches through various parts of the graveyard and cemetery for clues why they are there, the clues would be searching around other graves coming to certain names that you recall brining back some memory. The start of the puzzle begins with the player in an unmarked grave.

Structures: High narrow halls with in wall graves, large headstones, grave diggers work shed, miscellaneous graveyard objects.

Art style: gothic dark