Studio: Howling Wind
​Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Genre: First Person Survival Horror
Development Time: 4 Months
Team Size: 4
Role: Level Designer

• Concepted and prototyped level design from sketch to block out
• Set dressed Blockout with environment asset kit
• Created gameplay levels from blockout to finalized using a modular asset kit.
• Polished Gameplay by playtesting and iteration
• Communicated with artists on what assets were needed to help with the level development
• Performed initial art-pass on the level and optimized based on feedback

Accursed is a First Person Survival Horror game in which you play as Cameron Hurst. A man who was originally looking for help but is now stuck inside an old manor. 

Playing on horror tropes you will unlock the story of this manor in a variety of ways and hopefully get the power back on to call for help. However, be careful, you might be the only person in this manner.

The Design of the manor is fairly straightforward, there are various rooms that the player will explore in order to solve the mystery of where they are and how to escape. The player doesn't have a lot of visibility however various light sources will become available as the game goes on.

I wanted the manor to look extremely old and lived in, to do so I utilized a lot of props in various ways. Some block your path, some simply break your line of sight, and some help guides the player.

Players will have to traverse the manor and find fuses in order to power the fuse box and turn the power back on and call for help. 

I started my research for accurseds' level design by playing a variety of Horror games.

I tried to focus mainly on:

• How each game used its environment to direct the player
• Any common tropes 
• Ways that the narrative influences the level
• types of items that the player interacted with
• Level flow

Once I believed I understood how various horror game elements can come together, I began to gather reference images from these various games. I focused a lot on props and the overall detail these games put into every single room.

For my 2D layout I focused on:

• Decent sized rooms
• Various places to put important game elements(Fuses)

After working with my team we ended up settling on the sketches below because it would require the player to utilize all of the playable space and we wanted to avoid a linear experience in the mansion. I.E we wanted players to find a key later on that would open a door they couldn't open earlier

Note: However we did eventually cut out a few rooms due to level flow issues. We also wanted to put more of a focus on the upstairs of the mansion as being the place the player would spend the majority of their time.

When I began my blockout for this game I wanted to take an architectural approach. I used my "blueprint" (2D layout) and stuck to it  for the most part. I paid attention to where I wanted to place columns and pillars to make the level look as if it could be a real house.  I did however decide to go right into using finished assets simply because our time frame didn't allow me to grey box and revise. Time also was one of the reasons we cut some rooms, along with some of them needing assets we didn't have, and overall issues with the manor seeming life-like.

For the final steps of this level, I focused a lot on the smaller details that I saw in other horror games. I got as creative as I could with prop placement in order to make the level feel life-like, and spooky at the same time. A key element I needed to keep in mind was that the player has limited visibility so it makes it hard to see everything at once. Because of this, I anticipated players to stick close to the walls and search every inch of every room. Examples of this include candles, bookshelves, cabinets, etc that are scattered throughout the level to emphasize that this place has been here for a long time and the owner might not be the friendliest person.

Overall I was extremely happy with the amount of detail I put into the level. I think for future horror projects I'd like to focus on the core gameplay aspects first and then work up from there.  I'd love to come back to this project in the future and make some minor tweaks mainly to the gameplay and overall flow of the game to improve the player experience. In the end we were able to get the game ready and published on Itch.io.  Here are some other fun images from the game as well!