LEVEL DESIGNER
RICKARD FJELLVIND
ESCAPE ROOMS
In an escape room, players will solve a series of puzzles and riddles, using clues, hints and strategy to complete the objectives in hand.
Here's my attempt to create an escape room while further develop in visual scripting, puzzle design and environmental design.
Download The Mansion
Playthrough of The Mansion - Made by Cryptic Hybrid
WORKING IN UNREAL
FOCUS ON PUZZLE DESIGN
Since my focus was on puzzle design and the feedback to the player, I added asset packs and plugins that would help to improve the experience I wanted the player to feel.
Some tweaking was necessary for all assets to work together, and that's been a great learning process to figure out someone else's work and customize it to fit my design.
For example, I had to remove some functionality in the inventory system that didn't fit my game.
VISUAL SCRIPTING
Making puzzles to work the way I want, is a great practice for my skills in visual scripting. I really enjoy the process from a paper sketch to an actual working puzzle.
During this process, several changes will occur due to observations in the many playtests.
When I set up a puzzle it usually consists of four steps:
1. THE BASICS
Get the puzzle to work as intended by using as few nodes as possible, quick and dirty.
2. FEEDBACK
Adding the necessary visual and audio feedback and time these.
3. PLAYTEST
Let others test the puzzle to be able to notice things I didn't do myself.
4. POLISH
Clean up the script and adding comments.
The Classic Mansion asset pack was the base pack used in this project
Clean visual scripting so that I, and others, can easily debug or refine the code if necessary
Puzzle flowchart
PUZZLE DESIGN
My idea for a puzzle can come from anywhere and in anytime. In this particular project, I spent several hours away from the computer to get inspiration. But since my project time was set to 5 weeks, I was eager to see if my ideas could come to life.
Since the goal is to find the 4-digit code for the keypad I started to design four different puzzle roads.
THE FOUR ROADS
NUMBER PLATE 1
Journal hint
The direction is revealed from time to time
Solution
Behind the pendulum, in the clock, there's an arrow showing the correct direction.
To reveal the number plate itself, the player needs to match the hidden pattern on the painting with buttons. The pattern is revealed when using the glasses.
NUMBER PLATE 2
Journal hint
I showed my raven the spot
Solution
By matching the symbols in the birdcage on the pressure gauges, lights in different colors will appear on the light cabinet. Matching these lights will trigger an animation of the birdcage turning, revealing the correct spot for the number plate.
NUMBER PLATE 3
Journal hint
The knight in the night got it right
Solution
The knight is facing a wall, and his shadow is meant to guide the player to the window, where an arrow will give the right direction for number plate 3.
NUMBER PLATE 4
Journal hint
The direction came to me in a dream
Solution
Using the glasses will reveal the correct direction on one of the paintings by the bed.
FEEDBACK
In this project, I wanted the player to explore the rooms and puzzles, without me holding their hands. For this to work, it was crucial that the player got feedback when interacting with objects. Not only when solving a puzzle, but when figuring out the mechanics of the puzzles as well.
I spent a great deal of time finding and tweaking the sounds I added to the game. It was very important for me that the sounds would feel like they really belonged since I wanted the player to be able to focus on solving the puzzles.
SOUNDS
I worked with three different sounds topics in this project.
1. Interactions
[Drawer opens, button clicked, etc.]
2. Atmosphere
[Background music, fire burning, etc.]
3. Progress
[puzzle solved]
VISUAL
Some puzzles triggers changes in a different part of the room. Unlike real escape rooms, I had the advantage of being able to use short video sequences, to show the player what happened.
PLAYTESTING
Several playtests occurred during the process of making this game. The main focus on these playtests was the puzzles themselves. Did the player understand the mechanics, how to solve it and what the progress was.
The other focus area was on how the player moved around in the game. Which hints were too hidden, what puzzle didn't make sense on where it was placed, etc.
I didn't have time to fix all of these design flaws, but you can read about a few of them in the next section.
Puzzle interaction - Button sound effect and visual changes
Puzzle solved - Green lights and success sound effect
Hint system - Even the light color in this puzzle was a major flop
When the player finds the glasses he immedietaly know what to do with them, because the problem was presented for him earlier.
CHALLENGES
The biggest challenge was to publish the project on Itch. But the feedback and love I got in return have been so rewarding for my future design thoughts.
DESIGN FLAWS
SHUTTING DOWN A PUZZLE
The first thing that I will consider adding in future escape games, is to shut down a puzzle when a player is done with it.
THE HINT SYSTEM
To force the player to solve a puzzle before being able to get help was a catastrophe. Not only the requirement itself, but the design and presentation were really bad. Not many players understood why they were doing the puzzle, nor what happened when they were done.
PUZZLE COMPONENTS
Way too many puzzles contained buttons and lights. This made the player feel troubled and was not always able to understand what clue belonged to what puzzle.
DESIGN STRENGTHS
The most popular puzzle is the painting with buttons. Here's my breakdown of why this puzzle was a success.
1. PRESENTATION
The player spots the puzzle and is able to interact with it. This way the player will know the mechanics of the puzzle and that he must look for a pattern.
2. HINTS
The player finds the reference painting and a brush underneath it which says "The paint is almost invisible". The player understands that the pattern must be invisible.
3. ASSET
When discovering the glasses and puts them on, the player immediately runs over to the reference painting and discovers the pattern.
4. TWIST
But when copying the code to the puzzle, nothing happens. Something is wrong and it usually takes a few seconds to figure out that the puzzle's painting is upside down.
5. SOLUTION
After copying the correct code, the regular sound of success is played, and the player thinks he's very clever that he solved the puzzle and that it was fun.