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The Ambition of an Artist

A previsualisation project made in Unreal Engine about creating a MVP with a professional pipeline: it includes level design, environmental art and user interactions.

Project Descrition

The Ambition of an Artist was part of the coursework of a University module which required to create a five-minute-long video of a game prototype. My work consisted of creating a narrative experience featuring puzzle solving and environmental interaction. Throughout the game, the player can access to worlds inside paintings and, by exploring them, finding clues and collecting information.

Specifics of the project

  • Made with Unreal Engine 4, Maya 2018 and Photoshop CC 2019
  • Developed in 2 months.
  • Programmed using Unreal Blueprints.

Objectives

  • Develop an interactive game set in a believable environment.

  • Design a level consisting of a main section, the mansion, and two small parts, a forest and an ancient temple.

  • Concept and develop a range of interactions with the game world.

  • Achieve appeal through style, perspective, architecture, space, objects, materials, lighting and composition.

  • Improve Unreal Blueprints scripting skills and learning C++ for custom post-process shaders.

  • Design a satisfactory User Experience by developing a diegetic User Interface with narrative impact.

  • Manage and develop a game project, managing priorities and organising the workflow.

Gameplay Overview

The player impersonates the son of a famous painter, known as Ulysses, who went missing two years earlier. The main character has found his father’s family home, which was kept secret by the artist, and starts searching for clues about the fate of his missing parent. He soon finds out that Ulysses obtained a supernatural skill through an occult ritual: his paintings are worlds that can be entered and explored. My exploring the game world(s) the player can collect clues and add new sentences to the Notepad on which the protagonist writes down his thoughts. By connecting sentences, the player can progress further in the game and obtain new interactions and clues.

Development workflow

The project was a challenge I set for myself and an incentive to show my level design skills. For this purpose an accurate planning allowed me to save time during the art assets creation with a modular system for creating rooms. For summing up my approach to this work, here is an ordinate list of the tasks I have completed:

  • Every level has a purpose: I started by creating a definite list of objectives for the player.

  • Level layout: using Jacobean mansions as a source, I created a level layout which could lead the player into completing tasks. The level has a number of devices for guiding the player to the level: signposting, navigational aid, environmental narrative, audio clues and others.

  • Level previsualsation: I greyboxed and recreated the level in editor for final tweakings and for creating the scale of the game.

*Game mechanics scripting and implementation: through Unreal Blueprints I created the final experience of the game, without the art assets. At this point the game was entirely playable.

  • Previsualisation material: I created sketches of interiors while considering a modular art assets design, plus collecting sources and drawing inspiration from them.

  • 3D assets creation: using Maya, I created the majority of the assets in the game.

  • Editor implementation and final tests: the last week before the deadline I have implemented the art and tested the product.

Takeaway from this coursework

During this coursework I created a polished interactive experience by myself. I have learnt a lot about art production and the game development pipeline and learnt basic C++ for shaders in Unreal Engine. My level design skills improved immensely as I had to take into the account some issues that are usually faced by the artists during development such as modularity and rendering.