Violet Estate
Developed by: Harvey Yeo, Jon Tai, Sean Ng, August Enthoven, Adrian Lai
Project Roles: UI Programmer, Level design assistant
About Violet Estate
'Violet Estate' is a single player horror game where players are tasked to explore a haunted mansion with the goal to obtain and escape with a lost relic. With only a crowbar at their disposal, players must search for scattered keys while avoiding ominous ghouls on their path to the relic.
This Unity project was developed for the Unit 'IGB100 Game Mini Studio 1' at QUT.
Details of contributions
I implemented the UI and Menus for the game, including helping implement 'narrative note items' created by team members.
I proposed the finale scenario of transporting the player to a mysterious hallway to add a climax for the player that the game was missing.
I assisted with the narrative ideation in creating the horror-mystery setting to our game
My Development Process
This project was the first collaborative project I worked on in Unity. As we were given the task to focus on themes such as "triple use", "limited chance" and "unfolding", we came to a shared vision that a first-person horror game would be the best fit. "Unfolding" was represented by the genre of 'horror exploration' while "limited chance" and "triple use" were made into our mechanics. Them being the crowbar given to the player as a limited-breakable resource that they can use to further exploration (i.e. break obstacles) or repel enemies via hitting them.
Early development builds were isolated linear environments to test mechanics interactions. Some of those environments were built upon and made it to the final build of the game.
Early iterations
Early iteration of the level
Early note iteration (used same UI space as prompt)
Early iteration of the level
UI Development
Being tasked with creating the UI, I began research on games that share similar mechanics as ours, regardless of the genre. The initial UI referenced the HUD of Minecraft's bottom-screen inventory and objective prompts shown to players in games like 'Outlast'.
Over multiple play-testing sessions, I observed the actions of play-testers, taking notes if they were confused or lost. These references were then applied when implementing UI improvements such as 'event prompts' when the player is close to an intractable object.
The main menu of the final build
A storyboard cut-scene in the beginning advancing a frame with each click
Mockup of the note asset
The main menu of the final build
Other contributions
Our final painting room (the game's objective) is locked behind several keys where the players have to collect. The style of puzzle was inspired by Resident evil's discover 'A' only being able to overcome it after completing 'B' and 'C'. The intention was to have a short play-through with a simple puzzles that are intuitive for players to overcome and enjoy.
I also implemented the outdoor environment of the estate compound. This was inspired by the opening act of 'Outlast' and intended to act as both a tutorial section when the mechanics are thought to the player and an introduction section to build tension.
Once the the Mechanics, UI and level were established, we continued to refine our individual areas of responsibility while collaborating to improve the game-play flow experience. Over multiple play-test cycles, we improved the puzzles and feedback such as:
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The structure of the level and the way players can reach the final room
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Post processing and sound effects to make the enemies (ghouls) more intimidating
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Design focused members sourced and created sound effects for more interactions. While the programming members (me included) helped to implement them.
Final additions
Towards the last few play-tests, we observed that players did feel completing the objecting had any agency. This was because nothing threatened the player after they grabbed the relic (painting) unlike Indiana Jones escaping temples.
To address this issue, I came up with the idea that after grabbing the painting and leaving the room, the player should be transported to a mysterious area for one final chase. This idea was inspired by the changing environments in the 'Silent Hill' games.
Outcomes
This project taught me the importance of player interaction feedback. With post-processing, sound effects and prompts added to our game, the experience felt more complete and enhanced the horror theme we were going for. This experience strengthened by ability to identify and refine areas that needed polishing in future projects .