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Echoes of Silence is a third-person narrative game that takes place in 1980s Japan. You play as Yuto who is looking for his friend who went missing during their investigation of the abandoned Kurokawa-cho city district. Using the camera you must unravel the mystery of the place and find out why Yuto and his friend went there in the first place.
15 PEOPLE
Level design, level audio design
UE5
12 weeks
UNIVERSITY PROJECT
itch.io release
overview
my responsibilities
level design
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Created the design and white-box block-out for the whole level
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Created modular kit block-out for MVP area
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Helped to set-dress the MVP area
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Added mission flow into the level using the tool provided by programmers
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Worked with systems and narrative designers to achieve the intended gameplay experience
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In collaboration with a programmer created level events such as breaking and flickering lights
level audio design
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Gathered the audio effects that were required for the game
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Implemented the ambient sound for the level
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Created sound effect level events to support the spooky mood of the game
marketing
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Recorded video clips in the engine using a cinematic camera
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Created the teaser for the game
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In collaboration with the marketing strike team, created and edited the trailer of the game
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Created the final logo of the game
project showcase
project timeline
concepting
level proposal
pre-production
production
release
Playing reference games
Researching the chosen location
Gameplay ideation sketches
Gameplay dynamics investigation
Level layout sketches
Level pillars and one-liners
Player experience (gameplay + narrative)
Amosphere and location
General level flow, key locations and events
Level sketches
Gameplay sketches
Prototype block-out
Level one-pager and documentation
QA, playtesting and iterations
Iterated white-box block-out
Gameplay implementation
Narrative implementation
Modular kit block-out
Sound and light events implementation
Bug fixing
Set-dressing
Marketing
QA and playtesting
Minor iterations
level design
Echoes of Silence is a narrative-focused third-person game that introduced some development challenges I had never dealt with. My previous experience with level design included platformer and FPS games which were both high-action and gameplay-focused levels. Thus, I had to learn what it takes to create a level that allows the narrative to shine, meanwhile, keeping the experience interesting and supportive of the game's pillars.
During the 8 weeks of development, we created a vertical slice of the game. This challenged us in many ways especially in the design, as we had to create a narrative-focused game without having enough time to create an exhaustive narrative system. To solve it, we added some platforming and puzzle elements to make the player experience interesting and thus more enjoyable.
Level one-pager
Note! Open the image section in the pop-up by pressing on the image.
Level vision
Kurokawa-cho is supposed to be a place where no one has lived for a decade and that has been a place of ghastly events. As a player, I want the level to be immersive and interesting to discover, through clever use of architecture, set-dressing, light, and sound, so that I feel like I'm exploring an abandoned place and solving a mystery.
Level pillars
Illusion of freedom
One of the game's pillars was related to freedom and a semi-open world. As I knew that we wanted to control the flow of players' experience as much as possible, yet make them feel adventurous, I set out to achieve the illusion of freedom in my level.
Exploration
As we went for a Disco Elysium-style narrative game we wanted the player to have the freedom to explore and investigate the location and the narrative at their own pace without too much guidance or restrictions.
Mysterious mood
The keywords of our game were ghosts and Kowloon-style abandoned city district, while designing the level, I tried to make the level architecture, sound, and lights to support the mystery.
Investigation and puzzle
From a gameplay perspective, we focused on puzzle elements and narrative investigation. When creating the level, I had to make both of these work together harmoniously.
Level sections
To aid my designing process I used the method used by level designers working on Assassin's Creed franchise, which is a one-liner method. It works by creating a phrase or sentence that describes what the player should feel in this section/level and then supporting this idea with every design decision made in the level. In addition, using one-liners is a great way to communicate to my team what I want to achieve with the section in a more simple and easily understandable way.
Level play-through
player experience breakdown
Section one
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Narrow streets
As a player, I want to feel the mystery and distress of exploring the new and scary.
To achieve the player experience I set for the first section of the level, I put the player start in narrow alleyways. The narrowness promotes the uncomfortable mysterious feeling since it reminds the player of the backstreets that are considered scary and secretive. In addition, by introducing inaccessible narrow alleyways branching from the main path, I could make players more curious about the location since they couldn't see where the paths were leading.
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Narrow alleyways where the tutorial takes place. The player can pick up the camera and the diary which will help them solve the puzzles and progress in the level and story.
The way forward is blocked with a ghost wall that can be dissolved using the graffiti on the wall by activating it with camera zoom. It's meant to teach the player how to use the camera and what it can do.
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When reaching the main area of the level, the player is greeted with a cut scene that gives some more context to the narrative. The player gets a sneak-peak into the small square that lays ahead.
The section ends with a vista of the market square with the focal point being the bar at the end of the square. To avoid the player getting lost all secondary paths are hidden or blocked off.
Section two
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Shopping street
As a player, I want to feel like I'm being brave.
Open, unknown places often make people feel overwhelmed which leads to feelings of despair which is wanted to encourage because the player should feel like they are overcoming their fear and stepping into the unknown making them feel brave. In addition, in this section, the player is introduced to climbing which makes the player feel like they are overcoming the obstacle and making progress, which is what I wanted to encourage in this level section which also supports the feeling of bravery.
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When approaching the bar the player might notice the stairs on the right leading up towards the apartment, if they choose to take it, they discover a path that has been cut off. In this moment, the player is introduced to the problem of the level that is preventing them from moving forward in the level.
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Near the bar, the player meets the ghost of a construction worker, who introduces the challenge of the section which is that the way to the final section is blocked. The player must figure out, how to solve the problem. The player is given a few hints about the solution in the journal they received at the start.
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After talking to the ghost by the bar, the player can see the apartment building at the end of the street that the ghost was talking about, which means that the player has been introduced to the goal of the level.
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After activating all the lanterns, the player is shown a cut scene of the bridge being reconstructed in the main area which they should be familiar with.
Section three
The third area is located outside of the demo area
Apartment building
As a player, I want to feel like I'm somewhere bad.
The focus in this section was the make the player feel insignificant and caged which promotes unpleasant feelings about the location. Places that are dark and depressive don't feel like good places, which is why I chose architecture that would make the player feel oppressed. The small courtyard of the apartment building with the dark, high-rising balconies help to provoke the feeling of awe and inferiority in the player.
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When approaching the apartment building the player can see the entrance to the apartment building, however, the path forward has collapsed which means that the player must find another way to reach the entrance.
After some platforming challenges the player finally reaches the entrance to the apartment building.
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In the apartment building, the player meets the ghost of Daisuke's sister, who will help Yuto in the search for Yuto (not included in the demo).
In the apartment building, there is a place where the player gets a glimpse of the final area. The final area was not implemented in the demo.
workflow breakdown
sketching
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When sketching, the main goal was to explore different combinations of architecture to figure out what would be interesting for the player to explore. I took inspiration from architecture in Japan as well as from games that had interesting layouts in their levels.
prototype blockouts
I treated blocking out the map as sketching in 3D. The map went through rapid iterations in this phase and it allowed me to create a decent base to build modular kit blockout on top of.
modular kit block out
In order to save time, the modular kit blockout was done using environment artist's modular kit which came with some complications since it had a lot more detail to it than a level design modular kit, however, I made it work by following the environment artist's instructions and feedback.
set-dressing
The final set-dressing was done mainly by artists, however, since they were had their hands full, I helped to set-dress small parts of the level and gave them feedback based on playtest data I gathered when testing the level with players.
level development
Level events
To help with the mysterious mood, I created level events in collaboration with a programmer. During the concepting phase, we created flickering lights and TV to make the environment feel more spooky. In the final demo level, we implemented breaking lights and bottle-falling sound effect events.
The main inspiration for the events was taken from Phasmophobia. In Phasmophobia, there are a lot of events of ghosts making the lights flicker or throwing things. In addition, I referenced The Outlast Trials where the player gets often spooked by environmental events.
The goal of these events was to add life to the environment and increase the player's immersion in the mystery of the place and the supernatural side of the narrative.
Conclusion
Positive take-aways
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This project was my first experience working in a multi-disciplinary team. As a level designer, I learned much about communication with this project.
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It was a very challenging project since we wanted to create a meaningful experience for the player and make it fun. It was a great learning experience and challenged us in many ways. The end product might not be anything impressive by industry standards, however, I'm very proud of what we achieved.
Improvement points
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During the development, I had to be in contact with other designers, programmers, and artists, which often turned out to be more complicated than I had expected. There were a few miscommunications throughout the project which taught me a lot about the importance of efficient communication and conflict resolution.
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Throughout this project, I had to be involved with the core gameplay design, and by working on that, I realized how much my understanding of what makes gameplay fun must improve to create good games. I understand player experience as a level designer, however, I have never had to develop gameplay to this degree before. Due to that, the project suffered in the first half of the development.
