The Valley of The Mask

TVOTM was my first design project - level design.
I was instructed to create a level out of a game - specifically, not the first or last level - and to follow the theme of “not quite right”.

To meet the brief, I designed an environment based on the manifestation of the concept of the uncanny valley. The player is tasked with locating 4 keys, communicated by the keyholes at the door, located at the far side of the level. Initially, the player’s paths are blocked off by mountains, but these fall out of place as they pass by, vanishing by the time the player returns to the area.

The game uses several design tricks to draw the player’s attention to the keys and to communicate their approximate location without words or UI markers in the world, relying on visual queues only.

As the player explores the level, they’re observed by posessed masks of the valley. The only purpose these serve is to add to the atmosphere and create a sense of unease as the player explores. The longer the player is in the area, the quieter the music gets, eventually fading into silence by the time the door is unlocked.

Completing this project, I learned a small amount of scripting, realistic materials in substance painter, modelling trees, use of unity’s HDRP system and use of unity’s shader graph.

- Level Design - Scripting - Art Pipeline -