In Betwixt -
Cathedral of Light Library
The Cathedral of Light's Library is a level based on a location from an original story of mine called In Betwixt ([Insert Link Here) created inside the HPL2 Engine from Amnesia The Dark Descent, a First-Person Survival Horror game. This was a 3-week project where I took a small section of my story and adapted it to Amnesia's universe to create a concise experience that gives a small taste of what the story is about while allowing me to improve my level design skills.
Platform/Engine:
PC/HPL 2 Engine
Genre:
First-Person Survival Horror
My Roles:
Level Designer
Narrative Designer
How to Install:
If you have the game Amnesia: The Dark Descent installed either on Steam or retail, you can play the level yourself. To do that, just download the files and unzip them inside your custom_stories folder that's where your Amnesia base game is installed. If you have the game on Steam, the path should look something like this:
C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Amnesia The Dark Descent\custom_stories
Full Level Playthrough
Level Features
A fully-fledged level that makes full use of Amnesia's mechanics to deliver a concise experience inside a much bigger universe
Custom scripted events designed to enhance the immersion
Consistent Narrative context present throughout the whole level in the form of notes and visual and environmental storytelling
Custom puzzles with difficulty progression created to fit the Amnesia TDD universe
Creative Process
Goal & Theme:
When I started designing this level, it was supposed to be entirely for my original story. However, as I started playing with the HPL2 Engine, I realized that in order to take full advantage of it in the time frame I'd given myself, the level would benefit from being adapted to better fit the Amnesia universe and mechanics. That said, my goal remained the same: To deliver a Survival Horror experience with a unique story. From the beginning, I decided not to rely on jump scares and focus on creating scare events only when it benefited the narrative or gameplay. The result is an experience that relies more on setting up the atmosphere with ambience sounds and music, set dressing and narrative.
First Steps:
This being my first time using the HPL2 Engine, I decided to spend the first days getting used to the engine and watching as many tutorials as I could to understand what I could and couldn't do and define the scope properly. Given that the engine comes with all the assets from the original Amnesia game, I restricted myself to using only these in-game assets in order to save time and be more faithful to the original game. That led to some design changes because, as I mentioned before, this level didn't start as a proper Amnesia level.
A couple of things can be noted in this first iteration of the layout:
There's not a lot going on on the second floor. The reason was that it was designed to be a sizeable optional area where you could look down to the first floor with a straightforward path.
Even though the critical path makes good use of the layout for the Main Hall 1F, there's a lot of empty space there that would lead to areas devoid of meaningful content or exploration, harming the experience.
To achieve the primary goal of the level (Access the Chief Librarian's Office at step 6 and get the key to open the end level door), originally, players were supposed to light up three torches that stood in front of the room. After adapting this to Amnesia, the puzzle had to be scrapped, as that would mean removing many resources to light up light sources (a key mechanic in Amnesia).
Since this design was created before I experimented with the HPL2 Engine, there was a lack of custom events at the level.
After getting more used to the engine and studying the main game, I was able to better determine my limitations and get a feel for how to design puzzles that would respect players' expectations for an Amnesia Level, and as such decided to revisit the initial design:
Here's how the points in the initial design were addressed:
The second floor was completely revamped and made part of the main goal by adding a puzzle and making more use of Scale with a contrast between open and narrow areas.
The critical path on the first floor is more straightforward, and optional rooms are better delineated. The excessive empty space gave room to additional rooms that provided a more exciting layout to explore.
The main puzzle was redone and became a series of small puzzles spread throughout the level, eventually leading the player to a key that opened the Chief Librarian's Office. Tinderboxes (used to light up the light sources in the level) were adequately placed in the level, encouraging exploration.
Custom events showcasing the narrative and enhancing the atmosphere were added only as necessary to make the level feel more dynamic.
The Whiteboxing Process
When Whiteboxing this design, I had to go with an unusual approach. The HPL2 Engine is very prop-heavy and does not support using primitives such as UE4’s BSPs. Therefore the Whiteboxing was done using basic props to outline the walls and size of each room, and after I was happy with the base layout, I used planes to create the floors and, finally, the ceiling.
And here's a look at the final level inside the editor:
Design Challenges
Scripting Custom Events:
The script of a given Amnesia level is entirely done inside its respective .hps file. The HPL2 Engine Scripting is based on C++. As such, I had to study the proper syntax to code the required interactions as well as rely on the engine's detailed documentation available online. Below you can see the code I used to create the interaction with the breakable walls in the level:
Level Lighting:
The importance of proper lighting in a Survival Horror game cannot be overstated. Given the engine's limitation as far as ambient lights go, I had to spend a lot of time adjusting the Box Lights that were in charge of creating that effect so they were just dark enough to provide players with a sense of insecurity but not pitch black to the point of being unrealistic. Furthermore, some lights can pass through walls, floors and ceilings, so I had to be careful to place them in spots where that would not be as noticeable.
The Entity and the Final Sequence:
To wrap up the experience, I decided to ramp up the tension to the maximum by creating an event that would show the power of the Entity, the monster chasing after the player, from my original story. When the player gets the final key, most of the level goes black. As soon as they step out of the room, they can see that the place is full of organic tissue, and the Entity screams, telling the player that it is coming for them.
At this point, the player needed to run as fast as possible to the level exit or die against this invincible enemy. Since I couldn't create the enemy itself, I decided to keep things simple and script it as an invisible enemy that would hit the player no matter what in different time intervals in order to display its power. The idea was that the player cannot hide from it, and if they take too long, they will eventually perish. Here's part of the code I had for it:
Collectibles (Notes and Mementos):
When I started the level, I had the narrative defined since it was from my original story. However, I didn't have the content for the notes that players could collect as they progressed in the level. So, to create them, I had two philosophies in mind: They must add to the overall narrative while serving the gameplay, and they must serve as a reward for exploration or progression. In addition to that, Amnesia also has the Memento feature, which consists of notes taken by the main character when they interact with critical elements. I decided to use that system to my advantage and create them in a way that hinted to players what to do next without holding their hands too much.
Puzzle Design Philosophy:
When designing the Puzzles for the level, I set a restriction that they needed to be as believable as possible within the Amnesia universe. I also devised some of them to be approached from multiple angles. An example of this would be at the beginning of the level when you must find a way of jumping across a box that's too high to reach. Players could solve this by locating something that can be used as a platform or getting creative with specific static props. Another example is the Secret Books puzzle inspired by the original game. Here players had to find and pull several books on shelves in a particular order to unlock a passage. In the level, I introduced this puzzle in a tiny room with 2 books and later in the level with 3 books in a much larger room. For this last one, a note could be found that contains a hint to locate the books more quickly, which served to encourage exploration.
