Escape From Ravenloft
Overview
“Escape from Ravenloft” is an Action RPG Puzzle Adventure prototype where the player takes on the role of an adventurer who must escape Castle Ravenloft or else suffer the punishment of Count Strahd von Zarovich. This prototype was a live project from the coding boot camp that I did for game development. I completed four stories within two weeks for this prototype.
Final Gameplay Trailer
Production Synopsis
Studio: Game Development Coding Boot Camp
Type: Live Project
Team Size: 1
Development: November 1st - 12th, 2021
Ownership: Game Design, Level Design, Technical Art, Lighting, Gameplay Programming, and Prototyping.
Responsibilities: Developed Game Design Concept. Grey-boxed level and designed and built final level. Retargeted and Rigged Character Skeleton and developed animation blueprint and montages. Developed gameplay mechanics and level mechanics. Developed prototype.
Tools used: Unreal Engine 4, UE Blueprints, Microsoft Azure, GitHub PowerPoint
Count Strahd von Zarovich:
The ruler of Barovia and the terror that walks in the night…
Castle Ravenloft:
The final resting place for many adventurers…
Pre-Production
To complete the live project I was required to complete four user stories within a two-week timeframe. For this project I completed the following:
Designed and developed the game prototype theme, tone, and overall concept
Develop a grey-box of the level and conceptualize two puzzles and two traps
Design the level, lighting, and build level.
Develop and prototype the puzzle mechanics and player abilities to interact with puzzles.
Develop traps that provide danger to players.
Game Design
Theme & Tone
The world of Ravenloft is dark and foreboding, where adventurers rarely succeeds in escaping the terrors within the mists of the realm of Ravenloft. To achieve this feeling of dread and despair, the environment and gameplay is given a creepy feel through level design, environmental design, and through game mechanics and interactivity.
Game Premise
The player takes on the role of an adventurer that is trapped in the crypts of Castle Ravenloft. Only armed with a torch and the adventurer’s wits, the player must push forward through the crypts and dungeons of Castle Ravenloft to escape the clutches of Count Strahd von Zarovich and the mists of Ravenloft that brought the adventurer to this land of terror and misery.
Game Mechanics
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Deadly Traps
Deadly traps await unprepared adventurers within the crypts of Castle Ravenloft. Traps provide the main obstacle to challenge players as they move forward to escape.
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Dungeon Puzzles
Ancient contraptions and puzzles will test the adventurers to determine if they can escape the clutches of Count Strahd von Zarovich. As adventurers progress the crypts and dungeons of Castle Ravenloft, the puzzles become more and more challenging.
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Undead and Bestiary of Castle Ravenloft
Within the bowels of the Castle, armies of bestiary and the undead await both seasoned and foolish adventurers. Many of adventurers have perished at the hands of the cursed and the damned within the depths of Castle Ravenloft.
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Torch Attack
Our Adventurer starts off with only a Torch from Crypts of Castle Ravenloft. Yet, a torch is better than no weapon at all. With the torch, adventurers can attack the undead and bestiary of Castle Ravenloft.
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Torch Lighting
Within the crypts and dungeons of Castle Ravenloft, torch light is a precise commodity within the confines of the castle. It can expose both secrets and potential dangers.
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Interaction
The Adventurer must interact with doors, levers, contraptions, and even chests and treasure and artifacts from within the crypts.
Level Planning
Level Design Inspiration
For inspiration on the theme, mood, and visual aspects of the level, I sought inspiration from the theme and artwork of the classic Dungeons & Dragons Ravenloft artwork. These visuals aid in providing a guideline in how to develop the aesthetics and feel of the prototype.
Rough Draft Sketch for Level
For this prototype, I took inspiration from the catacombs of Castle Ravenloft. Due to the time constraints of the project, I made adjustments to the level prototype to allow time to complete the prototype.
Grey-Boxing
Grey-Boxing Level Video
This video shows the final grey-box level for the prototype, Escape from Ravenloft. While the final level is not exactly the same as the grey-boxed level, the grey-boxed level provides a foundation of which to build the level and guide the player the interactive experience.
Grey-Boxing Gallery
Level Design Gallery
Technical Art & Assets
Lava Material Instance
To help develop a dungeon with consequences, I developed a lava material instance to make the final puzzle room feel more dangerous with a lava floor.
Lava Material
Here is the Material along with its blueprint to create the instance of the material.
Lava Material Gallery
Torch Asset
Torch Asset
To aid our adventurer in escaping Castle Ravenloft, a torch is provided to light the dark shadows of the catacombs, or to become a weapon against the undead and bestiary that roam the catacombs and dungeons below.
The torch asset is a 3D model of a torch that is composed of a static mesh and has a particle system emitting flames to simulate a torch. A point light is also attached to the torch to provide light. Finally, a collision box surrounds the top of the torch to allow hit events to register when attacking an enemy.
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Carpet Trap Asset
This asset is used as a marker for the carpet trap.
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Lever Platform
This asset provides a path for the adventurer.
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Lever Asset
This asset allows adventurers to interact with contraptions.
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Portal Asset
This asset teleports adventurers to both safety and danger…
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Skeleton Coffin
This asset is used to provide a sense of the crypts.
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Mirror Asset
This asset is final asset that player interacts with.
Gameplay Programming
Gameplay Assets
The Door Key
The door key is the first asset that the adventurer encounters and needs to interact with to move forward. Without the door key, the player cannot move forward in the level.
Door Key Blueprint
The Door Key Blueprint uses input from the E key and uses an overlap with the asset’s box collision to cast to the Third Person Character. Next, the blueprint enables input and uses a Gate node to determine if the E key has been pressed and if the Third Person Character should enable input. The Blueprint then sets the bool HasKey? variable in the Third Person Character to True. A conditional checks whether the bool HasKey? variable is true and then prints a string to state to determine that the adventure has the key. Finally, it destroys the asset.
Locked Door Asset
The Locked Door asset provides a barrier to the adventurer between different rooms within the catacombs and dungeons of Castle Ravenloft.
Locked Door Blueprint
The Locked Blueprint uses input from the E key and uses an overlap with the asset’s box collision to cast to the Third Person Character. Next, the blueprint enables input and uses a Gate node to determine if the E key has been pressed and if the Third Person Character should enable input. The Blueprint uses a conditional branch to determine if the Third Person Character’s bool variable HasKey? is set to true. If it is true, then the Locked Door asset will be destroyed, thus allowing the Third Person Character passage forward. If the HasKey? is set to false, then sound is played to inform the player that the door is closed, and the player cannot pass.
Alter Asset
The Alter asset is the first dungeon puzzle asset that the player interacts with. The Alter asset is found in the forsaken temple within the crypts of Castle Ravenloft. At one time, before the defilement of Count Strahd von Zarovich the temple was a place of worship where the living could pay their respects to their loved ones within the crypts. The temple’s holy fire has all but died out expect for one fire and needs to be relighted in order to bring the temple back to fraction of its earlier days…
Alter Asset Blueprint
The Alter Asset Blueprint uses input from the right mouse button and uses an overlap with the asset’s box collision to cast to the Third Person Character. Next, the blueprint enables input and uses a Gate node to determine if the right mouse button has been pressed and if the Third Person Character should enable input. The Blueprint then sets the Third Person Character’s bool variable HasLitAlter1 or HasLitAlter2 to true. If true, then the corresponding Alter’s urn particle system is enabled, creating a fire effect. For the Locked Door in the Temple Room, the blueprint uses an AND node to check if both Alters have been successfully lit. Only when both Alters have been successfully lit will the door open.
The Temple Fires are lit once more…
The visual effect for this in the prototype aids in setting the mood for the game, and also provides a puzzle for the player before moving forward. Finally, the flame particle effect provides a feedback loop to allow the player to understand that something has changed in the game world.
Adventurer Blueprints
The Adventurer needs gameplay mechanics and abilities to interact with the world.
Our Adventurer has three main game mechanics:
1.) A Torch Attack Ability
2.) A Torch Lighting Ability
3.) An Object Interaction Ability
The first image to the right shows the Blueprint game logic that enables the Adventurer’s abilities. Both the Torch Attack and the Torch Lighting ability use a custom Input Action Event note that takes a reference to the character’s mesh. If the Input Action is pressed in game, then Animation Montage is played to execute the gameplay ability.
For the Object Interaction Ability, input from the E key is used to trigger objects that are interactable by the player. As each interaction is varied and unique, each interaction must be tied to either Blueprint asset or from within the Level Blueprint.
Level Blueprints
