Haustoria

Overview

Studio: Team Blight
Duration of work: ~9 Months
Tools Used: Unity, JIRA, Excel
Team Size: 4
Main Roles: Game Designer & Producer
Other Roles: Narrative Designer, Artist
Available at: https://squange.itch.io/haustoria

"Haustoria" is a harrowing RPG set in a world devastated by a root-based infestation. Originally created as a survival 2D runner in a 2023 game jam by myself and Erin John Cooley, the seeds of a horrific dystopian world flourished to re-invent the game as a 2.5D RPG Horror game. No longer does Briar need to run for his life, he can now fend for himself in this new world. Equip weapons, like an axe to cut through enemies, or fight nature with nature, embrace the new power within, and power up Briar with root abilities.

My main role on Haustoria was designing the gameplay, levels, encounters, and working as a producer to ensure the team hit key deadlines and goals.

Design goals

Haustoria was ideated during the 2023 Global Game Jam, in which the theme was roots. Together with Erin John Cooley, we came up with the thought of a root-based infection taking over the world - similar to the fungal infection in The Last of Us. For an added challenge, I decided that I would hand-draw all of the artwork on paper and animate using a home-made light board. Over the four days, we created something that we were happy with.

However, we knew there was more we could get from this idea. The original game was slow, lacked gameplay, and was hard to complete. In the Summer before returning to college, I decided I would assemble a team to take Haustoria further into production as our final year project.

I wanted to improve on all fronts of the previous iteration of the game. Mainly I had these goals in mind:

Demonstrate my ability to design fun, challenging, and unique gameplay.
To design a believable world that engaged the player with the story.
Lead a team for the duration of my final year, hit key milestones on time, and keep the game evolving using feedback.

Game design

The two focuses of Haustoria's gameplay were exploration and combat. We wanted a world that would tell the story itself, allowing for player interaction the enivornmental storytelling. Here is a flowchart of our initial gameplay:

COMBAT
I pitched the combat system and created it alongside the team. With nine months to work with, we consistently cut ideas to keep our scope small. Originally we had the option to Flee, but this proved technically difficult for our coder so we dedicated his efforts elsewhere and scrapped the mechanic. We settled on three core action options for the player during combat: Attack, Powers, Items.

Attack: Pressing attack will begin a mini-game, where an indicator swings along a bar from side to side. To do damage, the player must time it right and press an input in the middle of the bar. The game Undertale has a similar mini-game which I felt works well, so we created this system to engage the player actively during the combat.

Powers: We wanted the combat to escalate as our character changed. The powers are unlocked after a few combat encounters, which introduce new mini-games. These powers allow for the player to feel stronger, kill weaker enemies faster, and take on bosses without a fear of being defeated immediately. The first power unlocked is a variant of the basic attack, where the indicator swings faster, because I wanted the player to feel as though they were improving in skill. The second power deals a large amount of damage, and gives a variety to the style of attack.

Item: Item pickups were meant to play a larger part in the game, but due to constrained time, many had to be scrapped. Currently, the only items in the game are pain killers that heal the player for a small amount. We decided to keep this amount low, to encourage our player to take risks and feel as though they were living on the edge.

The enemies each have distinct, themed turns. I allowed the programmer to have creative freedom to create the attacks, but ensured each attack was balanced in numbers and provided players a fair chance to win.

Original Combat Screen

Final Combat Screen

Level Design

I designed all the levels for the game, both in layouts as well as implementing in-engine. As a level designer, I aimed to create a world grounded in reality with an impending sense of doom. With linearity in mind, I wanted the player to be able to explore without feeling completely restricted.

Key themes I kept in mind: Isolation, Dread, Overgrowth.
Focus: Environmental storytelling.

The Farm

Myself, and my team, had no real world experience of living on a farm or in an area as rural as the one we wanted to portray. Therefore, I took it upon myself to research and implement a realistic living situation that was still engaging for a player to explore.

Initially the character was meant to live by himself alone on the farm. I recognized it would be unsustainable for a man of his age to do all the work with a lack of experience. So to optimise time and avoid the need for other character designs, we decided that our character's family had recently deceased. This allowed for a larger house space, with more bedrooms and utilities.

The original house layout was small, rectangular, and uninspired. My original sketches:

I changed the layout of the house after researching and taking inspiration from my findings. I added multiple bedrooms to follow the idea of our character having a family, and a wider space that didn't constrict the player as much as the previous iteration. Due to technical difficulties from our programmer, the upstairs of the house was never realised.

Ellie's farm house in The Last of Us Part II was an inspiration.

The final iteration of the house removed some walls and the feature of the parent's bedroom. This was due to the camera transition proving tricky between each room.

My biggest challenge with the interior was the presentation with the cameras. Having a follow camera proved irritating and confusing, so we chose to go for static cameras. This allowed for full view of the rooms and felt creepy, similar to the camera style in the Resident Evil series.

Above: The whiteboxed downstairs area. Below: The final version.

For the exterior of the farm, I took inspiration from several images I found online, as well as an interview I conducted with a friend who had experience living on a sheep farm. From his experience, he told me that the layout of farms are rarely rigid and as rectangular as my initial sketch. I also felt as though my initial sketch was too open, with a lack of subtle guidance for the player.

My initial sketch of the map.

The final iteration of the farm was constructed to guide the player to the two objectives: the sheep and the exit to the village. I laid the path out to guide the player towards the sheep, and placed objects of interest to incite interaction.

The Forest

My aim with the forest was to guide the player towards the village while allowing them freedom to explore. I did this by outlining a main road path, while having an off branch for players to enter the forest.

Enemies were hand placed around the forest in a deliberate fashion to ensure players could level up before fighting the deer boss encounter.

I blocked off paths to areas the player shouldn't go by placing large clusters of the root growths, for practical environmental storytelling.

I tried to create seperate feelings for the forest and path by changing the lighting effects when entering either. Players enjoyed this change.

The Village

When designing the village, I decided to use a design I had created for my unfinished project It Takes A Village. This allowed for quick iteration as I had thought about the layout beforehand and could see what would work. Using the basis of the first design, I redid it for the purposes of an apocalyptic setting.

Entering from the lower left corner, the player would traverse through the village and exit from the top right. The goal of the village was to learn about the infection at the same time as the main character. Environmental storytelling would show there were protests and frustration with the handling of the infections. Stores would be explorable, where the player could fight their way through enemies to gain experience points and new weapons.

I wanted the enemies to be clustered around the "ground 0" area of the village, where the clinic would have failed to treat patients. As the character finds the clinic overgrown with roots, they would understand the gravity of the situation and have to venture further to cure themselves.

The right side of the village would be less infected as it is furthest from the clinic. Here I wanted to place an NPC encounter, where the player could make a consequental choice on whether to lie or tell the truth about being infected. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, the dialogue system was never realised by the programmers.

I placed scattered newspapers around the scene that allowed the player to find secure knowledge of what was happening. I wanted there to be some solid information, so the player wasn't left in the dark.

Due to miscommunication, my designs were changed in the final product by a team member. This was frustrating, as playtests had shown the layout worked well. Upon watching people play the final version, I found more people getting lost and not understanding where to go.

With no link between the road on the right and the main square, players felt as though there was nothing there for them - something I had intentionally designed around in the original iteration. The large amounts of roots and black flooring overlapping creates a lack of contrast and did not attract players as it should have.

The final village also lacks notable buildings, with no shops, town hall, or police station. While this is down to a lack of development time, I feel they should have been prioritised in the project to add more interest and options in the village.

Final Thoughts

Players enjoyed the world, but wished their was more interaction. I initially curated many more interactions throughout the game, but with restrictions due to code I couldn't always implement. This meant that the interactions I did have in the game needed to pack the most punch.
Understanding scope is incredibly important. We had really big plans at the beginning, but quickly learnt what was possible in the time frame we had.
It's important to be able to cut things you feel strongly about. Mechanics, storylines, map layouts, and more need to change with the game to keep the scope reasoable.
Creating an RPG is hard! Ensuring the player feels like their fights are fair is really important, because otherwise they will grow frustrated and give up.
Miscommunication can kill a project. When people in a team refuse to take initiative, it is important to step in and take action. Knowing what sections people were working on at any point was so crucial, and I wish the team had communicated this more throughout.
I learned a lot about level design and the ways players will explore an environment. I really enjoyed watching players figure out where they should be going and acknowledge subtle hints I had left in the environment.
I believe I am a stronger game developer now than I was at the beginning of a project. Knowing how to work in a team and manage others while still completing game design work was a challenge that I got through and I am proud of how things turned out.

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