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Crypt of Fear
Role: Level Designer
Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Team Size: 11
Dev Time: 7 weeks
(Apr 29 - Jun 14, 2024)
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Highlights:
Level Design
Game Description:
Crypt of Fear is an FPS co-op horror game where two explorers navigate ancient Egyptian ruins in order to gather treasure for their research.
My contribution
For this project we were 2 level designers. Our job consisted of making an eerie ancient ruin together.
For my first iteration of the level map. I was tasked with making 2-3 different rooms inside the tomb. I will go through each room and why I designed it in the way I did.
Game flow mapout
This is the game flow mapout we created and were taking into account when creating the different rooms in the tomb.
Rooms
The level design I did in this project consisted of creating 2-3 different rooms to combind with my other level design partner that made the central area of the tomb.
Room 1)
Flythrough of Room 1 [Unlit]
Quick sketch level map room 1
Something that I felt was really important to have in all of my rooms were cooperative elements, since this is a 2 player game.
That is why this room starts with an elevator that requires both players to stand on the pressure plates for it to move.
This is followed by a bridge sequence that has a trigger at the red line, causing a zombie horde to spawn behind the players and slowly start crossing the bridge. This puts the players in a stressful situation as one player has to stand on a pressure plate so that the other can enter a room and solve a puzzle for them both to escape the horde.
Unfortunately due to time constraints this functionality didn't make it into the final build.
The next part of the room has the players already split since the previous sequence. The plan was that our game would include a radio for the players to be able to communicate in-game. One player would be upstairs at a table of hieroglyphs, having to figure out a code and communicating it to the player downstairs that would enter the code.
When the right hieroglyphical code was pressed downstairs, the treasure would emerge and once again a zombie hoard would break in downstairs, forcing the player to quickly pick up the statue and run.
The player above him would then have to unluck a gate to save his friend, and make a run for the elevator.
The final part of this level consists of the players descending an elevator together and entering the main tomb area again through a crack in the ground. When the players drop down, many enemies will come for them. At this point before jumping down, I wanted the players to be able to plan their approach back to the start and decide who will carry the treasure and who will defend them. Based on for example ammunition, health or bravery.
Room 2)
Flythrough of Room 2 [Unlit]
Quick sketch level map room 2
This room starts out with a combat encounter. This is followed by a cooperative moment where the players have to press buttons at the same time in order to activate the bridge.
After that I once again force the players to split up. Since this is an FPS co-op horror game, forcing the players to split during moments in my room really puts an emphasis on the fear aspect. During playtest I observed that this was an effective way to keep the game scary in between all the shooting and having an allied by your side.
One player stands on the pressure plate and opens the door ahead for his friend. Then the player has to crawl through a dark tunnel.
The players emerge in different rooms. Each room has zombies that the player is forced to deal with themselves. Each room also has ammunition, ensuring that the player always has the possibility to eliminate the enemies.
We now arrive at a puzzle moment. The crawling player has a pressure plate that opens the door in between the rooms. The first room has specific fires that are lit. These indicate which fires are supposed to be lit up in the second room. Once the players figure out which fires to light, the treasure becomes obtainable and a door to escape emerges.
It was important for me to never force the players to backtrack, but instead reward them with a faster way back to the start once they had obtained treasure.
Room 3) (Scrapped early)
Quick sketch level map room 3
This room was supposed to be a combat arena where the emphasis was on teamwork and solidarity.
The players would activate the encounter and then have to withstand groups of enemies together until at last Anubis himself would emerge as a final encounter. The reward for slaying him would be the treasure.
The arena floor would also occasionally fill with poisonous scarabs so the player had to use the environment in order to avoid it. However this never saw the light of day since we decided to scrap it pretty early.
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