Godspeed

Horror Game with PS1 Aesthetic made in six weeks by five students in Game Design.

Journey to the limits of madness of a reckless astronaut.

Synopsis :

In Godspeed, you will play as a reckless astronaut inhabited by an intense thirst for knowledge. Accompanied by your robotic shipmate, your goal will be to uncover what lies behind the Sagittarius A black hole, risking your life if necessary. Travel the Milky Way aboard a spaceship, wield light, face your fears and the dangers of outer space. A journey that will bring you to the limits of physical laws and your own lucidity. Darkness conceals abyssal mysteries.

Trailer :

OneDrive Link :

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-6b0LF39RIujxzxO6vd-cIN4r5sURcYZ?usp=sharing

Design intent :

On the theme of isolation, create a cosmic horror game inspired by the universe of Lovecraft with a PS1 aesthetic. Provide the player with easy-to-use mechanics and use these to create puzzles where the player has sent the discomfort of putting themselves in danger in order to progress successfully. Offer the player a travel in levels with very varied environments.

Narration :

Create a relationship between the AI shipmate and the player character.
Create a disturbing atmosphere and a discomfort.
Tutorial through storytelling.
Use the Voice Over to indicate the low level of sanity.
Add narrative elements for a better understanding of the situation of the main character.
Use scripted events to add to the story and increase player discomfort.
Create a world in which the player can experience a meaningful adventure.

Sanity System :

The player gains sanity when he is in a bright area.
He loses some when in the dark.
The sanity gradually decreases up to a certain stage. When the player is at this point, he has a few seconds before the Game Over.
Light GPIs regenerate the player by alternating between sane and insane stages. The light restores sanity depending on whether the player enters the cone of luminosity.
On the player: when the player loses his sanity, a count starts. If the player does not regain his sanity before the end of the count, the player dies.

Challenges of the Sanity System :

Observation: The player must watch his surroundings to recognize and find the GPIs.
Logic: The player must be careful to manage when and how to let go of his sanity in order to progress.
Measurement: The player must manage his sanity according to the distance with the ray of light.

Mechanic of Energy Control :

The player has a weapon called the Energy Gun. This offers the player the possibility of taking energy from an energy source by sucking it up. He can then pull that energy source onto an empty energy source to fill it. If the portable AI has energy, the player can suck it as well. Purpose of the mechanics: This will force the player to put himself in danger and move around in order to progress in the narrative.

Challenges of the mechanic of Energy Control :

Observation: The player must take a good look at the room in order to see all the energy sources and resolve the puzzle of the room.
Strategy: The player must analyze the room in order to be able to solve the puzzle and think of the right actions to take.
Management: The player must manage his quantity of energies.

Mechanic of the AI Energy Stack

In Level 3, the player discovers a GPI capable of storing energy. He can move it with him and store 6 energies to be able to limit his trips back and forth in a large space.

Mechanic of Navigation :

The game contains two types of movement. The standard gravity navigation using WASD, but also the Zero G navigation inspired by the game Prey. A segment of the game takes place in Zero G, which makes the game more diverse with this exotic gameplay.

Puzzle :

Use energy-storing GPI to achieve narrative goals and advance the player through the story.
Limit the amount of energy in the rooms in order to get the player to think about their energy use and solve the different challenges.
To urge the player to manage his energy adequately to survive a constantly declining sanity when not in the light.
Health management in large spaces.

Level Design :

Thematic levels
Varied challenges and GPIs for refreshing exotic gameplay.
Progression of learning consistent with the objectives of the levels and the narrative.

Design Intent Level 1 :

This level is mainly dedicated to basic mechanics, such as moving, absorbing energy, and using it to open doors. The player discovers the distressing situation of his threatened ship and must make sure to continue the mission. He therefore scours the cluttered and narrow rooms to find the last vestiges of energy in order to redistribute it in the vulnerable parts of the ship.

In the cold room, a disturbing situation leads the character to gradually lose his sanity. The player is therefore invited to use the light to avoid being dominated by the madness caused by the darkness that wants to swallow it into their eternal abyss.

Crossing a long, claustrophobic hallway, the player must make their way to the maintenance room. This moment adds to the sinister atmosphere of the place and accentuates the discomfort.

The player will have to restart the batteries using the ambient energy and redistribute it according to the amount required. He is not at the end of his troubles. Other parts of the ship require his intervention.

New GPIs and Challenges:

Energy Gun
Small generator
Big generator
Door 1 energy
Door 2 energies
Batteries
Breaker
Sanity System

Design Intent Level 2 :

In this level, the player must activate breakers in order to restore energy to the essential sections of the ship. He explores a very busy and cluttered environment, with cramped space. Step by step, he discovers the failed experiences of the past while being exposed to the anguish of a threatening presence.

When entering the Biosphere, it is an impressive moment and very different visually than the narrow and cluttered corridors of vegetation. He must make his way in an atmosphere full of mysteries. From the Biosphere, he has a breathtaking view of the black hole and can see that it is all the closer. A deactivated light causes a scripted event which destroys part of the vegetation which opens a passage.

In the hangar, the player’s path is very oriented and he is told that he must reach the reactor room 2, only, a scripted event project him into space. He will never achieve this goal. There ends level 2.

New GPIs and Challenges:

Door 3 energies
Door 5 energies
Breaker without batteries
Broken doors

Design Intent Level 3 :

In this level, we make the most of the atmosphere of space and isolation in a hostile environment. He must first discover an exotic gameplay with movement in space in Zero G. He is invited to walk the exterior of the spaceship from light to light to avoid sinking into madness, to gain access to the SAS gate of the Leisure Sector where he can continue his journey. This moment is particularly impressive with the VFX visual effects and the aesthetic of the ship. The black hole appears in all its ominous splendor.

The player will then walk through the Leisure Sector where he will have an impressive view thanks to the mezzanine and will find himself in a much larger environment and which contrasts with the parts explored so far. With his transportable AI, he will be able to amass as much energy as possible to activate the elevator door which will allow him to reach the long corridor that leads to the control room area and, above all, to the Escape Pods room to escape the ship. There will be few active lights and the player will have to be very attentive to his surroundings to use the inactive lights to restore his sanity. The distance between the rooms and inside the rooms represents a challenge for the player who will have to manage his energy resources adequately.

It is also in this level that the scary elements are even more impressive.

New GPIs and Challenges :

Zero G Navigation
Portable AI
Door 6 energies

My role in the project :

Collaborative game design with my colleagues
Collaborative Level Design of all levels
Level Design of initial level 2 and 3
Final Level Design of level 3
Collaborative narrative design of all levels
Documentation in Confluence of LDD and RLD
Level Art in collaboration with my colleagues
Communication with artists
Voice Over of the main character

Feedback on errors and observations:

To create the Level Design and Narrative Design, we did a papermap of the entire ship and thought about our learning progression between Level Designers and Narrative Designers. The path taken by the main character and the first scary elements were almost all determined at this point in the game’s design. So we got a better idea of the environments explored and what each level might present as challenges. I believe this method was the best for our project.

We received congratulations from some experts when they saw how much we managed to make our levels thematic and visually very different. That was our Level Design challenge: to make the sectors varied despite the fact that the action takes place in the same spaceship.

Our initial design contained GPIs called Eldritch Objects, which acted as blockers for the player and were only passable when sanity was low. We found that using them did not provide enough rewards for the player to find it useful to put themselves in danger. Removing them from our final design forced the two Level Designers of the project to rethink some or all of the configuration of certain rooms.

We also found that the batteries were not fun enough to be reused in many areas. This required us to rethink our Level Design of Levels 2 and 3. Batteries are now an exotic gameplay present in Level 1 only.

Lack of time and assets forced us to over-reuse some GPIs and 3D assets. Wallpadding, for example, was used for the walls and the entire exterior of the spaceship, but also for the legs of the pool table.

This project contains more than 200 scripted events and the part that contains the most is the hallway scene of level 3. It was a colossal challenge to manage the scripted event system and we ran out of time, we couldn’t make a system that can allow elements to be added between elements already present. We had to think carefully about each of the items added to our list, knowing that the slightest mistake would force us to start all over again. Some great add-on ideas had to be put aside, unfortunately.

Our VO was recorded by each member of our team. Since we are not experienced actors, the imperfect effects of certain pronunciations or intonations can interfere with the player’s immersion.

We wanted to make a game that was extremely diegetic, but we realized that there were certain signs and feedback that needed to be integrated into the UI. Also, the UI was a big challenge. Our brain is often mistaken for a mini map, but we were unable to change the design in time for our work to be handed over.

The sanity tutorial was very difficult to design. We were having a hard time making the player understand (despite Harvey’s narration) that he is losing his sanity and that it can kill him, but also that he has to go towards the light. While playing our first design, I died twice in the tutorial in search for a light. We have chosen to trap the player in the cold room to initiate him into the sanitation system in a safe environment. I thought about changing the phrase “Maybe I should find a light …” to something like “The darkness surrounds me, I feel like my mind is sinking! I need a light! Help me Harvey! ” Perhaps this change would allow the player to understand the urgency and danger of darkness.

Unlike Unreal, Unity does not allow you to work in different sublevels of each level. We had to coordinate the team very effectively and used all the means of communication at our disposal to carry out this project, by teleworking.

We ran into some design issues when we let other colleagues make changes to our levels. Since not everyone was aware of the reasons behind every decision, at times my levels were changed inappropriately, forcing me to erase some of their work and revert to the original design. I still disagree on some changes, sadly.

We wanted our levels to look good and the game aesthetically appealing so much that we sometimes forget to make sure it works. Art must be secondary; gameplay must be prioritized.

Managing sanity in large spaces is the primary challenge of level 3 and we had to make sure that the player had enough time to go through the different rooms without dying. Every light has been thought of.

Leading the player down the final lane of level 3 was a challenge. The hallway, despite having a window to the right, is very dark and it is difficult for a stressed player to find his way if he turns around several times. We therefore thought of putting small bright green cubes to indicate the way in all circumstances. A goal pointer has also been added to help orient yourself through the different levels.

We had trouble optimizing our game. The collisions and the many polygons produced by ProBuilder made our game too heavy. We used the knowledge of Mathieu Fréchette to lighten the game. However, by removing collisions in certain places, it is possible to enter from the rear of level 3 (Leisure sector) to make the whole level in Zero G. A bug found by my son Thomas during an epic playtest.