Utopia Burns
Skills: Unreal Engine 5, Blender, Level Design, World Building/Creative Writing, Blockouts
Over the course of six months, I had sought to create a level from beginning to end while also experimenting a fair bit with some new tools. Those being Blender, and Unreal Engine 5.
In starting the project I had wanted to build a world that dealt with an alien menace, but in a Solar Punk futuristic city. That formed the bedrock upon which Utopia Burns was founded on. The world itself was what had got me started, but it was the ideas behind the levels construction that would really get my gears turning.
Preproduction
Built on an island in Prince William Sound, Alaska, the city of Bligh Island is a utopian paradise that came from roots embedded in the past of America. Using the oil reserves found in the region, Inuksuk Panuk, a leader of a local Inuit tribe, created the village from which the city would later be born in 1919. His daughter, Uki, would inherit leadership of the village and control over the reserves of oil that their small town possessed. Possessing a natural distrust for outsiders, and intelligence, Uki would go on to found the “Bligh Island Oil Company.” off of the principles that her people had founded their village upon. Due to their naturally large amount of resources, the city had grown incredibly quickly. In the 1950’s, the company had grown, however Uki was cautious of the oil running out, and looked for ways to expand the company. That was when she heard of the triad of scientists, Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson from bell labs. Who had found out how to convert light from the sun into electrical power for everyday use. Understanding that her time was limited, she sent a telegram to them directly, offering to pay them to research and develop this for Bligh Island Oil. The scientists agreed, and in 1971, Bligh Island was powered by solar energy during the bright parts of the year. Selling this solar technology and doing more research and development into green energy, Bligh Island Oil rebranded into The Bligh Island Energy Company
The level begins with the player exiting their car and heading off to the left. The continuity of space in this area guides the player down the passageway, which, with its tall walls and flanking buildings make this area feel more cramped and dark. The player moves forward and encounters a dead body next to a dumpster that’s covered in blood, with a trail of it leading inside of the building. The player then has the question of “Is the blood from the person or what attacked them? There’s a light source from the inside, which guides the player as to where they should go without a non diegetic input. Going inside, they see the trail of blood that goes off into the corner. What the player can then do is either follow the trail itself or flank around it toward the further off wall. Should they do this, it would allow them to sneak up on the enemy and take it down with the element of surprise. Once the swarmer enemy has been dealt with, then they can move up the stairwell onto the second floor.
As of now this is iteration two of the block out, as I had gotten feedback early and had some ideas expressed to me that would allow me to make it better overall. The narrative affects the space as well as the aesthetic and gameplay worlds in this level as well. The player is a detective for a city in the distant future, where they have access to some weapons that they can use to defeat the enemies that appeared in their city. The enemies being invaders from another dimension have tools of their own and are monstrous in appearance. Their take over of the city has resulted in strange sigils appearing in the buildings and monsters roaming the street. The gameplay world was affected by a design problem in shooter games referred to as the “Door problem”. The door problem is an issue where the player can see the enemies that they will have to fight in the next area, however since the enemies can move into that area, the player will just take pot shots at them from the doorway. Removing the tension, danger, and fun out of the experience. As a result, for the first encounter with an enemy I rotated the way that the shelves in the basement of the store were arranged. So that they were parallel to the doorway as opposed to perpendicular
