visual storytelling | 2D art & animation
2.5D | sidescroller | dark fantasy | narrative | combat | pixelart | aesthetic | clean
In this sidescroller you play as Yara - guard of the holy soul slicer - and fight against
the heaven kingdom.
From the snow-texture to the music everything is selfmade (I just outsourced the soundeffects from "weloveindies" and mixed them together). This was the first time I had to deal with visual scripting in Unreal Engine 5 and it was a great challenge to learn this part of game developement.
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Topic of the class was "retro games" with the framework:
1. It has to be related to the aspect "retro" - in an aesthetic way or through retro mechanics.
2. Everything should be as much selfmade as possible.
SETTING
The game plays in a fictional land, whose mood is a mix between a peaceful mountain village and an industrialized city. It's winter and the dark bricks of the village's architecture stands in contrast with the snow. Everything seems a bit industrial, because of the cubic monochromatic buildings, the power poles and chimneys. The most distinctive element is the bright yellow sky, to show that something is off with the heaven.
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The village seems abandoned. The bloody handprints and puddles suggest, that something terrible happened to the people. You are the last villager standing - ready to strike against the golden creatures, which were sent by the heaven kingdom.
STORY
Once upon a time humanity lived safe in harmony and was protected by the gods and angels. The Shin-family had a special connection to the heaven kingdom. Some would say, they were the ambassadors between heaven and earth. The soul slicer was a holy sword, given by the gods to fulfill their will on earth. It has been passed down from generation to generation.
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The last guard of the soulslicer was Lex, the youngest son and big brother of Yara. But a fateful stroke drove him to madness. His little daughter died young by drowning in a lake. The gods spoke to him, that he just has to cut the dimensions between heaven and earth with the soulslicer. When the gate is opened, they would send his daughter back from the dead. Driven by sorrow he did as he was told.
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It was a cold winter dawn, when Yara watched her brother open the gate. His daughter stumbled out of the rupture into his arms. But she wasn't his daughter anymore. She stabbed him to death, with a cold smile on her face. And out of the rupture...the entire kingdom of heaven - headed by the angel Hyrax - poured into the human realm to destroy humanity. In shock and tears Yara grabbed the soulslicer from her brother's corpse and began to hunt Hyrax and to strike against heaven.
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Because heaven is a lie.
LEVEL
DESIGN
The first thing I was certain about from the beginning was the snowy landscape in contrast with black buildings and a bright yellow sky. My biggest challenge in this was thinking about different locations to make the whole level a bit more varied. After some brainstorming I've started to sketch the level. I tried to change heights and levels so you don't feel like just running straight. Also I added a little "jump n' run"-like area (at the one hand to use the jump and dash-mechanic a bit more and at the other hand cause I wanted to have a lake so bad!)
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How I made the Assets
Because I was aiming for a 2.5D look I've decided to create a mix of 2D pixelart-assets and actual 3D objects with pixelized textures.
Modular Assets
Most of the map was build within a modular set out of cubes in unreal itself. Designing the village minecraft-like in the world gave me more freedom in creativity so I made about eleven different texturized cubes. To keep more of the 3D look and make it feel more high quality I also painted individual normal maps and material maps such as roughness and metallic for each Cube.
2D Assets
To make the characters fit in better visually into the 3D world, I've decided to mix 3D objects with flat sprites. Those are trees, bushes, corpses and the far off background assets. The whole scene feels more like a stage and I love this aesthetics. This gave me the opportunity to stylize the whole game and give it an unique look.
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Placing 2D sprites such as trees in the background seemed like a problem at first, because the player could see, that they are flat (it looked a bit weird). So I've programmed versions for single background assets, which would always face the player.
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For the actual background I drew different layers to create a parallax-effect and more depth.
3D Assets
Within the working progress I realized, that I can't create every asset out of cubes to reach the style I imagined. So I also created some objects in Blender to supplement the scene (this also includes using a landscape with world aligned materials and water simulation from Unreal). To keep more of the pixel style I'm using on the 2D assets, I applied a remesh modifier to pixelate the objects a bit.
SOUND
DESIGN
The Music
"Everything should be selfmade so you can say in your portfolio, that everything is selfmade".
- My professor at the beginning of the semester.
Apparently I took this too literally (he was very suprised), because I also wrote my own little soundtrack consisting of two songs. If I had more time, I also would have written a boss-track but I'm pretty satisfied with the vibe of my music. It should feel like a mix of hope & desolation. With the xylophone I tried to express the snowy landscape.
The Sound Effects
The base-sounds I've outsourced at weloveindies.
But because it's kind of impossible to find the "heaven-minion pain scream"-sound effect, I obviously downloaded a bunch of sounds and mixed them together.
CHARACTER
DESIGN
Main Character
My first character was the protagonist Yara. From the beginning I had a vision for her design. I wanted her to look a bit supernatural to show her connection with the heaven kingdom and her soul-weapon. White hair and shiny red eyes worked best so I sticked with it. I also included a bit of the worlds aesthetics into her outfit to make her part of the village and to show, that she belongs there.
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In her animation I was aiming for a ninja-vibe. Maybe it's because I've watched a lot of anime but it felt like the right thing to do. It does make her running feel faster and her general aura elegant but strong. To make the combat system more complex and fun to play, I planned a three parted combo-chain, that ends in a blade-storm.
Minions
For the base enemy-design I asked myself how I would expect minions from heaven kingdom to look like. I didn't want them to look too much like angels, because they should be distinguishable from bosses. I also wanted to highlight eyes in a similar way to biblically accurate angels. On the whole they should look a bit gross (to support the title "heaven is a lie") and demonic without looking like an actual demon. So I had the idea to cover them in liquid gold and give them a halo to show their connection to angels.
Boss (Hyrax)
For Hyrax I've created a self-interpretation of a biblically accurate angel. It was especially important to me that he has multiple wings, a halo and at least one ring with eyes. I also thought he would feel more mysterious and dangerous, if the player can't see his face. So I gave him a mask with soft mannequin-like facial features. For his halo I've decided to revive the shape of the basic enemies' halo and make it way bigger. The wings are black to make him look more evil.
