Beneath the Lake
A Third Person Mystery-advendure
Trailer - Highlights
Pitch
“After you – a ranger – find out your father has disappeared, it is up to you to uncover the alien secrets that the local mining company has been hiding.”
Project Details
- Made over 4 weeks, half time (4h/day)
- Unreal Engine 5.6
- Plugins used:
- Jakub IWALS template
- Ultra Dynamic Sky
- Blockout Tools
Summary
A Mystery-Adventure focusing on exploration, narrative design, setdressing and composition
The Goal
My goal with this level was to remake a previous open world level into a linear one. I wanted to expand on the story and worldbulding, as well as build a semi-realistic setting of a small town in the rural North.
Overview
Explorability...
In the first half of the level, you are free to explore the area. There are details everywhere that add to the immersion of the setting of a small town in rural Sweden, making it feel more real and tangiable.
...and Linearity
And then, in the second part, you are thrown in a one way trip down, deep below the ground, beneath the lake itself. The environments change drastically not just in it’s level design, but in it’s architecture and all around feeling as well.
Talkativity
Every NPC in this level has something to say. Some are more important than others to listen to, so be on your watch. If they are not explicitly vital to the questline, they are either there to provide further worldbuilding, or just to say something funny.
Level Walkthrough
Act 1
1. Firewatch Tower
2. Church
3. Town Square
World and story introduction
This level starts with the main character – a ranger currently living in a firewatch tower – getting a distress call, urging them to come to the church across the way.
In the first few minutes of this level’s playtime, I wanted to give the player both an incentive to explore the given area, as well as give clear and direct motion on how to forward the plot and mystery.
This is done through subtitled voicelines. I find it gives the world a more lived in and alive feeling to it, having NPCs not just be props, but serve a role in the narrative.
Act 2
4. Residential Area
5. Camping Grounds
6. Industrial area
Open Exploration
After the player has been given the quest of investigating his father’s disappearance, they are relatively free to explore their surroundings, with hints along the road about what to do next.
First, the player is reminded of their parents house. This is not a strictly necessary part of the story, but exists as padding world building.
Act 3
7. Research Area
8. The Gridded Forest
9. The Battery Room
Stranger Depths
A pivotal point – as well as the end of the more “open world” of the level – happens when the player has to slide down a slab of rock, down, down deep beneath the lake. There, they find bodies lining the floors of research camps, having been locked in about a day ago.
The mining company has been investigating a cave room, previously