LH3DBlog @lh3dblog - Tumblr Blog

Game ideas

Idea #1

The first idea is set in the backrooms, and takes place on level 4, the offices. Which is a set of empty offices which is relatively safe and has lots of survivors roaming on this level.

However, for gameplay purposes I would add an enemy, however I would keep survivors in the level, but not as a game mechanic, more as just a "lore" factor

Images of what the level would look like:

I would have some empty rooms, but I would need to have some rooms that would be full with office cubicles, desks, filing cabinets and other furniture you may see in an office such as shelves and vending machines

The goal: you need to find a key, which is left on a desk, you need to retrieve the key then head to a door which leads you to a survivor camp

The enemy:

The enemy that you have to avoid will be inspired from this video, however I would make it a bit larger to make it more intimidating and also so one of the other game mechanics makes more sense

How to survive:

You can hide under desks, then it can't attack you and will leave. This is why I wanted the enemy to be larger, as if it smaller it could obviously see you under the desk, and it'd be strange

Behavior:

It roams around the map mindlessly, and upon seeing a player it will chase them. If the player goes under a desk it will stand near the desk for a few seconds before walking off.

It will have basic hearing, so when you open doors it will go towards the noise, but it wouldn't be aggressive. It'd be in a more "curious" way.

Game idea #2

The second idea is when you are given a "LiDAR scanner", this is a necessary tool that you must use to navigate around, as you don't have anything torches and it is pitch black, so you use the scanner to show the path ahead of you

Inspiration:

Screenshot from Escape the backrooms

Screenshot from LIDAR.EXE

The goal would be to head to the exit, the game requires exploration and there is no enemy, however there would be map hazards such as pits with no bottom, or areas with bear traps. These will only be distinguishable by shape

Clues will be placed around the map and signs will be used to help direct the player. The exit will be a door on a wall which when coloured it will appear green so it stands out.

Idea #3

My third idea is a stealth, puzzle horror game, which revolves around having to use the darkness as your stealth, and light will get you caught, and to "beat" the game you need to grab a key from a desk, which unlocks a breaker box you must enable to unlock the main entrance, so you may escape. The lower floor windows are also boarded up, so it prevents jumping out and escaping.

Theme:

The game would follow a soviet union aesthetic, and take place in a khrushchevka. I would also take inspiration from Metro Exodus, as it is set in Russia and a lot of these apartments are featured. Another game I'd take inspiration from is Stalker Call Of Pripyat, as it is in Ukraine and has many khrushchevkas.

Enemies:

There will be one enemy, which will roam around the building. For how it looks, I would have it look like the "wretches" from the "Backrooms", which are entities that were human, but got the "Roth Syndrome" infection and lost their humanity, and attack out of fear.

What they look like:

They only have red flesh, no skin (as they scratched it off), I would have them being humanoid.

However, instead them having a "human" face, I would want their face to look more disfigured as I believe it looks more terrifying, adding to the horror aspect.

I would have their faces look like this skin stealer, which is a backrooms entity, that I found on Bing images. (It is from artstation but the link doesn't work, 404 error)

How to survive:

I would keep the "fear" factor that the backrooms wretch have and incorporate into my game, so if the player is being chased they can choose to go into a dark room, and the enemy will not attack out of fear. However broken lights won't be every, some lights will flicker and some areas will be fully lit up, to create danger

How to win:

After enabling the breaker box, the exit will unlock letting you escape, however it will also turn on some more lights (however some will remain off). You then need to head to the exit and after running out of the building you win.

Game Idea #4

My fourth Idea will be based on backrooms Level 8, which is set in an underwater (not fully submerged) cave. The goal is to retrieve a tool box, get a crowbar inside of it and pry open a door

Inspiration:

My main inspiration is from the game "Escape The Backrooms", and the cave level.

However I also took more inspiration from the backrooms wiki for enemy ideas and potential map designs / features. Such as this image with the bridge, I'd make it so if you ran it'd crumble and you would fall into a pit of doom and die.

I also took inspiration from real underwater caves

Enemies:

There would be 2 enemies, a moth like enemy that is attracted t other players torch, forcing him to use it carefully, while still being forced to use it as it is dark inside the caves. The inspiration is the top 2 images, which both come from the backrooms. (A Mortisdoptera and a deathmoth)

The bottom two images is for an enemy spider, which will create spider webs to slow down players and also hide on the caves ceiling to then jump on the player as an ambush. The bottom left is a Troglosidae and the bottom right is an Aranea Membri (which isn't in official backrooms lore, it is fan-made).

---------------------------

I want to do the fourth idea, as I think the dark caves would be perfect for a horror-like game as it can cause the player to get lost easily if they are not careful

The reason why I didn't choose the first idea is because Level 4 is mostly empty, and I wouldn't have a lot to work on or practise

The second game has a similar reason why I didn't pick it either, it means I would make everything texture less (to fit the style and concept of the game), so I wouldn't have much to work on.

For the third idea, its because the map wouldn't play out very well, also those apartments are very small and it would create tight spaces. This means that the map wouldn't be very big and trying to get away from the enemy may be frustrating

#Youtube

Toolbox

The top 2 toolbox is what I would think it is iconic and what comes to mind when I first think of a toolbox. It also stands out in the dark due to it being red, so for a games design choice if the player is in a dark area, it will make it easier for the player to find the toolbox

The bottom 2 toolboxes represent more modern ones, being made out of plastic and having a black and yellow colour scheme. The reason why I wouldn't use this toolbox is because in a dark setting it may be too difficult to find.

My toolbox model represent the shape of the top one, but had a brown rusty texture. I did this to tell the player that the toolbox has been left alone for a while, and also because I couldn't find a good red metal texture

Diegtic UI Moodboard

Diegetic UI is a user interface that exists in the 3D world rather than being a 2D image or text. This will greatly improve the players immersion as there is less text cluttering up on the screen, this removes distractions and lets the player see the world while still being able to see what their tasks are, their inventory, health etc

The forest notebook:

I would use the notebook from the forest so the player can open and see what their current tasks are. I would also allow the player to write in the notebook so they can add their own notes to remember anything imporant

Metro Exodus wristwatch:

In metro exodus, when you are attempting stealth if you are in a visible area a little blue light will appear on your watch to let you know that you can be caught. I would incorporate this into my game so the player knows when they may be close to getting detected, without having to use UI like in Payday2

The forest inventory:

When the player opens their inventory, then open up their backpack and can look to see what tools they have inside. I would probably have the backpack resemble a satchel.

The Forest

The forest is a very popular survival game, in which you are in a plane crash and your son gets kidnapped by an unknown person.

The game has the basic mechanics of a survival game such as hunger, food, and enemies attacking mostly at night.

However the game has some mechanics which makes it stand out from other survival games, an example is that the tress fall over and can destroy anything underneath them. This makes it so the player has to be careful while cutting down tress, otherwise they could end up destroying their own home.

You could also use a turtle shell as a sled, and slide down mountains/hills at fast speeds

-------------------------------

Mechanics that influenced my game design

Crevices:

In the forest, to enter some craves you need to slide through a very tight crevices. I wanted to incorporate this into my game as a hiding spot so the player can get away from the enemies.

Notebook UI:

In the forest, all the UI is 3d, for example the inventory is your backpack, and the building UI is a notebook. I wanted to use the notebook so the player can see what there task is, this makes the game much more immersive as it gets rid of boring 2d UI

The Backrooms

The "Backrooms" is a community made horror, in which anyone can freely add their own levels and entities to the lore. The idea of the backrooms is that you can "noclip" out of reality and enter the backrooms.

People will use "liminal" images to create backrooms lore with. Liminal images often represent loneliness, as no other people can be seen, it creates a feeling of your being watched due to how empty the area is, despite it usually being full with people. Sometimes they also look like places you have been to before, creating a sense of nostalgia

Random liminal images:

This is an incredibly famous image of "the backrooms" and the first level (Level 0) is inspired off this.

The backrooms is inspiring for a horror game because of the liminal vibe it gives off, one of the biggest human fears is the fear of the unknown, and the backrooms is a perfect example of that. The images feel so empty but also very dangerous, as a player would feel like they are being watched or will be attacked

Enemy moodboard

I have two different enemy ideas on this mood board, one representing a moth and the other representing a spider

The moth enemy is inspired from the backrooms, but two seperate entites. The top right image is the "deathmoth" also known as "entity 4" from the backrooms, which is a volatile entity that attacks people, it also creates "moth jelly", which could be a good game mechanic where the moth will randomly leave it in areas, which the player can consume for a speed boost.

The other inspiration is a Mortisdoptera, which is often confused with deathmoths, they are often smaller and attack in hoardes. It is stated that this entity primarily spot prey via their advanced photoreceptors, so an interesting mechanice could include where if the player is using a torch, it will trigger the moth and it will attack the player. However the torch will be needed so the player can navigate in the caves

-------------------------------

Both of the spiders are inspired from the backrooms, one being unofficially made in the backrooms community and the other being an official entity.

The Troglosidae look like regular spiders, but are much larger and still produces webs. A mechanic could include the spide creating webs on the ceiling, and when a player gets close they will jump infront of the player and chase them.

The second entity (the one with the mask head) is known as an "Aranea Membri", it is very large, bigger than players and is incredibly volatile, it will attack the player on sight. It comes from the game "Escape the backrooms", a feature it has is it crawls around vents in the map, it can enter them and also exit them randomly. I could incorporate this as a game mechanic.

Instead of hiding in vents, it will hide in cave crevices which the player uses to hide. This will make it harder the player to find a safe hiding spot. However, the spider will be noticable from the outside so the player knows if they are going to enter a safe crevice or one with a spider residing in it

Screenshots of game

Creating rocks individually would be inefficient and would take to long, so to create a nice cave environment I went to Quixel and download a rock model.

Then I used the brush model and applied the rock model, this let me quickly apply the rocks and also change the size and rotation randomly of the rocks.

This did take some attempts though, as the brush had to be set so a specific angle for the brush to work. Even though I got it mostly working, there was still an area where the brush would not work, and I couldn't get it to work.

UVs

UV mapping is projecting a 3d model's surface onto a 2D plane so that textures can be accurately applied

What is a tag?

A tag is a label you can assign to actors to categorize them, allowing you to manage objects based of their tags.

An example of what tags could be used for, is a keycard door. The door won't let the player through until they pickup the key, which as the correct tag and the player can open the door.

Tags can also be used to stop friendly fire in team-based shooting games, as you can assign friendly players a tag that prevents you from killing them

What is a lerp?

Lerps are mathematical functions that are used to smoothly move or rotate an object to another position. They can also be used for colour blending and material transition.

Importing to UE5

Imported the toolbox into unreal engine 5

This is before I put it into Quixel, so I will need to re-import it

Toolbox inside quixel

Imported the toolbox inside of quixel

I went over the brown part with the roughness tool. The further left it is, the more shiny it becomes. The further right, the more rough it is

For the metal drawers I applied the Metalness and Roughness

Textured Toolbox

It has a weird rusty brown texture as I was unable to find a high quality red metal texture

UV Map for toolbox

This is my UV map for toolbox, this is also the 3rd variant as for the first two I had the white lines visible, so when exported they were visible on my 3d model

Slight changes to toolbox

The back of the toolbox was completely flat, so I add 2 hinges to represent where the lid opened:

However, as I was getting closer to my max tries I was not able to detail it, I just had to leave them as 2 small cubes.

The inside of the lid also change, the sides became smaller so it appeared to fit with the lines of the actually main part.

Before:

After:

Video of a 360 animation:

360 view of toolbox - Untextured

Screen shot view

360 view with animation (lid opening)

Using textures in ue5

Create a "material" inside the content drawer and name it. Then open it up

Right click into the space and search up "Texture sample"

Once you have it, select it, then go to the details tab and select the texture you want

Then, connect the texture to the emissive colour

To make it so the decal appears when it makes contact with something, such as a bullet hole, you open up the projectile

Create a "Spawn Decal at Location", then select the decal you made

change the decal size to your liking

You need to create a "Rotation From X Vector", attach it to the rotation of the Spawn decal node and the "Hit Normal" of the event hit. This needs to be done, as the decal will look stretched and weird when it comes into contact with a surface

Image of the nodes

Final result:

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

LH3DBlog