Project Airport
My role on Project Airport was to create design documents for the project, whitebox and full decorate parts of the level, and prototype mechanics.
Me and the designers started creating the design dock, trying to flesh out the idea of an horror game set in an airport. We decided that the design pillars would be:
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Horror - scary monster enemy, graphic imagery, tense atmosphere
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Stealth - sneaking around monster enemy, noise makers
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Narrative - Linear story based progression to move player through game
As a team, we then produced a storyboard for the game, going over the narrative beats, environments, and gameplay that we wanted the game to feature. Additionally, I produced a dependency chart (to show gameplay flow), and the complete design team co-produced a map (to plot out environment scope), which would then fully visualise the team's goals for the game.
For my segments of the level, I would be making Duty-Free, Luggage Storage, and Bag Searching areas. I started by looking at images and watching videos of real UK airports so that I knew that what I was making reassembled a realistic environment.
I started with Duty Free as it was essentially the centre of the entire level, and would allow the other designers and myself to build around the space. I started by simply blocking out the space, with empty spaces that would become shops, restaurants, and seating areas. The player will need to sneak around this area in search for luggage, so I created this area with stealth in mind.
I then created a handful of actor blueprints that reassembled props to flesh out the spaces more (eg chairs, benches, counters, tables, desks). I then placed them around the areas in ways which could create fun stealth interactions with the enemy (eg ducking down isles in shops, sneaking around tables in restaurants, creeping around a bench).
I then moved on to the Luggage Storage area. I created a large open space to then fill with whitebox props.
In the real world, these rooms were massive and are full of conveyors. Each conveyor has a number assigned to it, which stores the luggage of a flight. I recreated this conveyors and a way to navigate the room, which would allow for a simple gameplay puzzle later in the game where the player will have to release the correct conveyor to search passenger's bags.
Lastly, I created the Bag Search room. This room was to reassemble the area where arrivals would wait for their bags, but with a twist that it was a security area. On the conveyor, the player can use a machine to Xray luggage to see if a bag contained a potential key item. The player then has the choice to search the bag for the item. While doing this, the monster will be in the room, so they will have to sneak around the monster and lure them away from the conveyor to perform searches safely.
I then began work on prototyping one of the core minigames of the project: Luggage Search.
As the name implies, the player has to search through luggage bags in order to find key items to progress the game and narrative.
The minigame ends either when the key item is found, or all items in the bag have been checked.
The minigame was made with WIP art assets for the minigame and is still waiting for the final art.
