Little Nightmare In the Cabin
Project Summary
Description
In Little Nightmare In the Cabin, you play as a child who finds herself trapped inside a cabin in the woods. Players need to find a way to escape while avoiding being caught by a mysterious killer.
Game Engine: Unreal Engine 4.
Project duration: 3 weeks.
Little NM in the cabin.mp4I made all the 3D assets, blueprints, and levels. The project focuses on stealth and avoiding the killer. Players cannot fight back, but they can distract the killer by turning on noise emitters, such as radio and TV.
Screenshots
Project Development
Inspiration
Most of my design ideas originated from classic horror tropes. Cabin in the woods; a killer who somehow walkers faster than you run; the killer always seems to appear at the right location at the right moment. I designed the playable character to be a defenseless child in order to depower players. However, players do have the advantage of being small. Players can hide beneath coffee tables and beds to avoid being caught by the killer. There are other hiding spots, like closets and lockers.
A good horror game needs to have some kind of twist. The twist of this level is that you are an actor, and you are filming on a movie set. It also explains why the killer always appears at a very convenient location. Artificially injecting dramas and jump scares is a common technique in movies and shows, a.k.a "lazy writing".
Some location designs are inspired by What Remains of Edith Finch, such as the basement.
Playthrough of Barbara's level. Just like the player character in my project, Barbara was a child actor
(Video Credit: Married To the Games. Start at: 4:20)
Players can crouch, prone, walk, and run. The killer can hear players running when they are close enough. Since players don't have a lot of movement options (unlike games like Outlast, which emphasizes outrunning your killer), you spend more time observing and waiting for opportunities to sneak past your enemy. Model design in the levels needs to adapt to this slower playstyle. Players should be able to observe behind a cover.
In Alien: Isolation, players can hide behind covers and observe the situation
(Alien: Isolation is developed by Feral Interactive and Creative Assembly, published by SEGA and Feral Interactive)
Issues That I Had
I didn't intend to make a distraction mechanic. The idea of distraction occurred after the second week of development when I had finished building everything except the basement. Since my level wasn't built around the idea of distracting the killer, changing and redesigning parts of the level to adapt to this new mechanic was a pain in the butt. Even after the rework, the distraction tutorial didn't feel right.
Although players can distract enemies, distraction is an underused tactic.
Design Documents
Map
Timeline
Tianzhi_Shen_Module1_WalkThrough.docLevel Design Doc
Tianzhi_Shen_Module1_EnemySpec.docEnemy Spec
Tianzhi_Shen_AssetList.doc