H O M I N G

Project Brief

Credits: Xinru Liu Fog

"Homing" explores how diegetic elements can support player navigation as an immersive, UI-independent layer. Developed in Unreal Engine 5, it unfolds across a fantastical land lifted from the sea by a colossal tree. Light and environmental interactions guide the player through the world, unfolding a journey of presence, return, and exploration.

The player rises from the cave into a shallow basin. The lighting warms, and a shift in vegetation signals the entrance into the world above.This project began as a design exploration into diegetic navigation—how environmental elements can guide players without relying on traditional UI. I developed the worldbuilding around Arboran, a stylized ecosystem shaped by light, roots, and silent narrative. The process included concept development, visual direction, and creating an art bible to anchor the project’s tone and aesthetics. 

This prototype represents a complete solo pipeline—from design research to technical execution. If you're interested in trying it out, I plan to make the Windows build available for download here and on my personal website soon.

Level 1: The Cradle of White Roots 

Level 2: 

Energy Absorption and the Fish Spirits  

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Level 3: The Shallows  

Level 3: The Shallows

Level  4: 

The Cave

Level  5: 

The HOLLOW TREE 

World Setting

In this fantasy world, countless giant trees grow in the water, and their root systems form land that provides habitats for countless creatures. A creature that looks like a shark but can fly in the air has established a symbiotic relationship with the giant trees. But one day, one of the trees died. Without the support of tree roots, the land was gradually submerged by water, and the sharks originally sheltered by the tree gradually died. Until a little girl reawakened the souls of these sharks and they brought back the life of the giant tree together.

Art Bible

By Xinru Liu Fog

Software: Publisher

Navigation Strategies

Researching the existing strategies from games led me to implement 6 types of navigation strategies with diegetic elements that could help the players finds out their position in the environment and plan their route in my game environment, which are: 

-Path: I used water as paths to connect the levels and floating particles to emphasize the direction.

-Weenies: The huge white tree in level.3 serves as reference points for players to find their position.

-Arena: I set the level. 3 inside a huge hollow tree, the players can not return after they entered, to keep the player focused on the exploration inside the area.

-Visual cue: I designed a dynamic visual cue as a glowing shark that floats in the mid-air. They will appear after the player touches the branch and fly toward the next goal.

-Light: I used different colors of light to shape the differentiations of each area, where the three shark skeletons were located, and used light to emphasize every entrance.

-Foreshadowing: I used cutscene or camera shift to directly show the goal to keep the player motivated.

Layout and experience goal

Here shows the top-down 2D layout of my game environment ↓

I designed all the interaction mechanisms to be related to each other and form a closed loop to facilitate players to understand the goal.

Level.1 serves as a starting point, with a straight road and arch-shaped trees clearly telling the player the way.

In level.2, with the help of the dim environment, the glowing particles and plants attract the players to trigger the branch on the ground and wake up the shark’s soul. The shark will guide the players to level.3.

In level.3 the camera will zoom in to the huge white tree when the players enter and show them the connection between the shark and the white tree. And explore the level and wake up the rest of two sharks. In the end, the tree will growth up when player reach the top of the tree led by sharks.

Differentiation between levels

I created differentiation between levels through the color, space structure and decorative elements, which is helpful for the players to understand the transformation of the levels. The spatial structure of the arena with the surrounding enclosure makes it to form a separate location outside the quest world. Such characteristics has advantages in terms of the establishment of regional themes with large differences, because there is almost no mutual influence between regions.

Character

Software: PantTool SAI, Blender

I refer to the tribal elements in fantasy style in the clothing, combine with the flowing cloak makes the character easier to integrate into the natural environment. In order to better integrate the characters into the game world, I considered how to express the connection between the characters and the interactive objects. I designed a glowing material in the shape of leaves on her cloak. It will turn off when she touches the corresponding branch. Narratively speaking, it is the girl who gives power to the branch to bring it back to life, which also awakens the soul from the skeleton.

There are various approaches to displaying and communicating information to the player with diegetic methods and elements. Some players might value the efficiency and straightforwardness of a generated path, while others may enjoy more organic approaches which in turn lead to game world exploration and discovery. The aim for my project is to provide the game designers and developers with insights into how they can apply diegetic elements and in what context they can or should be used in order to best serve the players’ needs.

My role(s) and responsibilities

• Formulating concepts: 

• create initial concept, build the mood board

• Developed a finished storyboard, with larger and more detailed frames (the individual scenes) in color.

• Create Art Bible to establish the visual language of the setting. Key aspects of this were: the props, the character and the environment.

• 3D modelling:

• Created the 3D assets, such as the the huge white tree, branches, cave, storme pillar, the huge hollow tree

• Created the textures for enviroment assets

• Created 3D models and animations

• Level design:

• Established a flow through the 3 main levels and 2 sub levels that could show the environmental storytelling

• Designed and sat up the scenography of setpiece items to direct the player's attention and support the main flow through the areas

• VFX:

• Created fx particle effects with direction by Niagara system in UE5

• Sat up the different post processing effects, such as tone mapping and bloom, to align the visual aesthetics with the art directors vision

• Worldbuilding:

• Created the general world and story that is shown off in the game