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Flicker of Hope (formerly called Wick) is a stealth-horror game inspired by Little Nightmares, where a little candle seeks to spread light in a darkened cathedral.  It was developed with an 18 person team in Unreal Engine 4.  

My Role 

• Owned the level design process for two areas
• Integrated a spline camera system into level pathing to enhance visibility of player pawn and objectives
• Implemented moments of stealth and tension by leveraging AI patrols and cover systems
• Created production-value moments within gameplay by scripting triggered events and cinematics using Blueprints

The Chapel & Catacombs

Asset Packs 

Environmental Art by

  • Stained glass by Aria Hight & Niara Clay 

  • Statues by Heather Steffani

  • Candle & candelabras by Paxton Klotz 

  • Gothic Island (for architectural pieces) by Conrad Justin

  • Medieval House Interior (prop pieces) by Egor Perepelitsa

  • Concrete Rubble by Scania3D 

  • Medieval Dungeon by Infuse Studio

  • TS DungeonKit1 by Trinary System

  • Advanced Glass Pack by Michal Orzelek 

  • Light Profile Pack by Construct Games

  • Sculptures Pack Vol 1 by Darchall

Overhead Outlines

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The Chapel

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The Catacombs

Why a Cathedral?

The core mechanic of the game is the properties of the candle: small, malleable, and above all, illuminating. The key to creating a world where candle mechanics would make sense is ensuring it's a world where candles matter. 

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Candles bring light, warmth, and in some cases, are a symbol of hope. Candles strive against the darkness. They matter most in dark places. 

 

We considered settings such as castles, mansions, and churches, places where candlelight fits well. However, candles also have meaning. In some cultures and religions, lighting candles is meant to evoke spirits or dispel dread. Candles have religious symbolism, one which works best in places like churches. But a church wasn't enough. 

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Our team felt the game needed dark, gothic setting where a candle can have symbolic meaning...enter the cathedral. 

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Why Catacombs?

One of the many tunnels in Kerak Castle.

A quarter of the way into development, the design lead and I got excited about the idea of an environment that would push Jean Wick to rely on his light in strategic ways. The kind of environment we had in mind was underground and most importantly, claustrophobic. It would be a place where the player would have to rely on hearing Mara's sickened breath while being careful about where they use Jean's light. A place right underneath the chapel. A place fitting for an evil, sickened nun to haunt its halls. Enter the catacombs. 

Inspiration for the game

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In The Shadows of The Roman Catacombs an
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Scaling Challenges

For the first whitebox, I built the chapel to the scale of a standard church rather than a European cathedral. Keep in mind that our player character, Jean Wick, is a candle intended to be 1/6th this size of UE4 man. 

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The level had to be reconciled with two other features of the game: Jean Wick's size and the spline camera which would follow his movements. 

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Scale was the most troublesome challenge in the first three weeks of the development because of the size of the character and the constraints of the spline camera, as you'll see later. Here are the iterations of the section of the cathedral we call the "chapel."

The LDs had to wait a while for animated character models and mechanics. But we didn't sit on our hands: we still had to whitebox a space that would at least fit the stealth mechanics we intended to implement. At this scale, the level would have been too tight for the amount of gameplay expected, even with a small character. I had to re-scale. 

In order to have more playspace, I upscaled the cathedral. Here you can see the original and the upscaled version on the left and the interior on the right (see UE4 mannequin in background).

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CapstoneProject - Unreal Editor 2020-01-25 23-50-29_Moment.jpg

With the level at its new scale, I could then start to plan the paths and enemy encounters. Note that the interior of the final chapel isn't just rows of pews. In order to make the layout have a sense of variety, I had to take creative liberties with the interior of the chapel, using architecture, statues, and pedestals to comprise most of the cover in the area. 

Chapel Constraints

This is a game about stealth, but with a twist: Jean Wick is a moving light in a dark place and he's constantly dripping wax. In other words, with every step he takes, he's giving himself away. Another equally important constraint is how we use the spline camera to convey path, safety, and resources. Lastly, there has to be meaning to Jean's presence in the game world. He's a candle and his job is to light things. Level designing in this game meant answering two questions:

 

  • How do I balance cover and resources?​

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  • How do I convey the player is making progress?

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Cover and Resources

  • Incentivize the player to use cover by luring them with resources (wax) 

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  • Notice the darkening of the screen to show the player has entered into a hidden state

Game Progress

  • Gameplay moments that have nothing to do with stealth

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  • Instead, the player is rewarded for their progress by seeing a light show.

Chapel Action Blocks

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Jean Wick's goal is to cross from the entrance of the chapel down to the opposite end to ignite a candle array that'll light up the chapel. However, he is beset by Mara, a darkened nun seeking to snuff out the light and the Legiones, a plague of insects that have sickened and killed the inhabitants of the cathedral. There are three total enemy encounters in the chapel. Here is the result of 7 months of whiteboxing, action blocking, playtesting, and polish.

Catacombs Action Blocks

A quarter of the way into development, the design lead and I got excited about the idea of an environment that would push Jean Wick to rely on his light. The kind of environment we had in mind was underground and most importantly, claustrophobic. Enter the catacombs. 

Pathing Challenges

Initially, pathing in the catacombs looked like this

  • 90 degree turns

  • Over the shoulder camera in the hallway

  • Tight, claustrophobic environment 

  • 3 camera transitions 

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(over the shoulder camera)

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camera transition

camera transition

camera transition

But playtesting and feedback revealed:

  • Cover was hard to identify in the darkness

  • Camera movement did not look or feel good once Wick enters cover

  • Camera transitions at the 90 degree weren't smooth

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With new data from playtesting, I had to reevaluate the pathing and had to sacrifice some of the claustrophobic environment to be able to iterate. Here's what I did:

  • Rely on less cameras to reduce chances of transitions breaking

  • Use less 90 degree paths as a method of using less cameras

  • Use a gently curving camera in the long hallways leading up to break room

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start here

camera transition

camera transition

Although the first half of the catacombs doesn't feel as claustrophobic as it used to, it was a necessary sacrifice. Here's the end results:

  • Use lighting to show exact locations of cover

  • Use lighting to show where enemy is moving

  • Use simpler hiding holes

  • Smoother camera tracking 

Lighting

Lighting would be critical to the atmosphere of the game. During the first lighting pass, my goal was to have the lighting contribute to a lonely, dark atmosphere. 

First pass at godrays

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Final pass at godrays

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Lighting Flash

Along with the godrays, I designed a blueprint that causes spotlights to flash like lightning. 

Here were the initial results

Here are the final results

End Cinematic

The end cinematic was my other biggest challenge of this project, and since we didn't have a dedicated lighting artist, I had to take up that role. Here we see the player walking into the sanctuary of candles, triggering Mara's aversion to the light and subsequent demise. 

Lighting References

Final Lighting Pass

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I had to rely on a mixture of baked, static, and dynamic lighting placed strategically and increasing/decreasing in intensity and radius over the course of the cinematic

Once those were in place, I could light mara with a backlight coming from above and a key light from below.

Cinematics & Sequencer

Here the camera is moving along a spline track, keeping focused on Mara. The camera's position along the track is controlled using Sequencer.

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