Lights Off
Project Summary
Mrs. Adler's day becomes stranger and stranger as the day progresses. Everyone starts to behave weirdly, including her family. What are real? What are hallucinations? She has nothing but a flashlight. She can only trust her own eyes, or can she?
Game Engine: Unreal Engine 4.
Project duration: 2 weeks.
I was the sole level designer and scripter. I was responsible for making blockmesh, cutscenes, dialogues, events, and the flashlight mechanic.
LightsOff_TE.mp4True Ending
LightsOff_BE.mp4Bad Ending
Screenshots
Project Development
This is my second oldest level design project. The requirement for this assignment was to create a level using light as a way to solve puzzles. My idea for Lights Off was inspired by the Silent Hill series. The horror and the supernatural were tools to explore the character's story and her mental state. There are two sides: the light and the dark. Nothing special about the light side. The dark side is creepy, inky, and rusty.
Flashlight and Light Switch
There are two important mechanics: flashlight and light switch. The flashlight has two modes. By pressing the tab key on the keyboard, players will switch to the green light, which can hide certain objects on the dark side.
I didn't know how to create a UV light effect. Instead, I cast Line Trace and hid actors that were hit by Line Trace.
Green light also reveals hidden texts. Light switch is hidden when in the green light mode. To use the switch, players have to switch back to the normal white light.
Light switches are the portal that teleports players from light to dark and vice versa. The light side and the dark side are on the same level (map).
Similar to Titanfall 2's time travel level, the light side was built directly on top of the dark side. When the character was teleported, only her z coordinate was changed (+/- 5000).
Hidden Meaning of Light & Dark
The light side is normal, but this normality is there to cover the truth. And the truth is ugly and disturbing, just like the dark side. The story is all about guilt, the unspeakable horror that Mrs. Adler did to her son.
Why the green light? Because green is the child's favorite color. You can tell by examining the outfit of Mrs. Adler's child. Throughout the level, players' every step is guided by the child. Green symbolizes Mrs. Adler's conscience.
Why is the light switch hidden when the green light is on? The light switch is the only way to run away from the dark side (the truth). That's why the green light hides switches. Only the white light (the lie) can reveal light siwtches.
Things I've Learned
Creating the space and then filling it with encounters or puzzles was a terrible idea; this approach resulted in some lackluster puzzles and empty rooms without any purpose. It took me a few projects to finally understand why I should tailor the level design to each individual encounter/puzzle.
Design Documents
Tianzhi_Shen_Module11_WalkThrough.docTianzhi_Shen_Module11_AssetList.docx