Sunspot is a 3D stealth horror game vertical slice. You play as a scientist trapped inside of an abandoned nuclear fusion facility, hunted by a strange creature that grows more powerful in light. Stick to the shadows, solve puzzles, and survive!
Genre: Stealth Horror
Role: Game Designer, Narrative Designer, Level Designer, Playtester
Team Size: 9 people
Platform: PC (Itch)
Tools: Unity, Google Docs, Github
My Contributions:
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Designed the core gameplay loop, including monster behavior and patrol routes, puzzles, level progression, and win conditions.
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Designed and wrote the overall narrative, including character backgrounds, in-game notes, UI reminder text, and tooltips.
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Documented overall game design for teammates to reference, and communicated with team to diagnose and solve production problems.
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Designed, blocked out and populated the levels to guide the player towards goals and tell stories through the environment.
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Assisted with playtesting and publishing.
Narrative Design
Problem:
We needed a way to flesh out the setting and provide context for the player's actions, the monster's behavior, and the progression of each level.
Solution:
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I designed a narrative centered around a private nuclear fusion facility run by amoral scientists, who summon the monster in a failed experiment.
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This narrative background allowed me to write in-game notes in the style of different characters, providing hints and useful information to the player while also exploring the personalities of the people who worked there.
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I based the note system on similar systems used by games such as Amnesia: the Dark Descent and Bioshock, which both give the player information to progress and explain the context of their actions and the setting.
Lessons:
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The narrative design was generally well-received, and players enjoyed the story and setting.
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However, I noticed players were more receptive to smaller notes, and tended to bounce off of or completely ignore larger paragraphs or walls of text.
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I learned it's important to keep my writing brief, and make ncessary information stand out from the rest of the text so players disinterested in the story can progress with no issue.
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Were I to remake this game, I would shorten my writing, bold important info such as codes or names, and pause the game on the note menu so players can focus on it without worrying about the monster.
My initial narrative design, including character backgrounds, tooltips, and in-game notes.
Some of my Game Over hint text.
Notes as they appeared in the final release.
Security Level Design
Problem:
We needed our first level to introduce the player to the game's mechanics and setting without holding their hands or softening the game's atmosphere.
Solution:
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I designed the first level, the Security Station, to be a circle-shaped level with linear progression. Each room would introduce the player to new mechanics, including door codes, sprinting, and hiding in lockers. This would allow them to experiment and learn the mechanics in relative safety.
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Once the player has moved through all of the rooms and collected a key, only then does the monster actually become active. That way, the player has already interacted with the systems necessary to avoid and escape it.
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After designing and graphing the levels, I helped implement my designs in Unity. I greyboxed the levels, applied textures, and placed props in rooms to tell environmental stories and draw the player's attention to important areas.
Lessons:
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For the most part, players did not have any trouble progressing through the level and completing objectives. The level's flow was natural and worked just as designed.
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Some players struggled with the shotgun locked door puzzle. I hinted at the solution with the room's note, but looking back my hint may have been too vague. Now I would probably add another, separate clue in the room, such as the number "0" written in blood above the first locker.
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While the first encounter with the monster was effective horror, I don't think it properly conveyed the monster's mechanics, such as detecting your location if you stand in light for too long. Today, I would either add tooltips to tell the player or have a more obvious audio cue, such as the monster screaming.
My initial level design for the Security Sector.
The earliest greybox for the Security level layout.