Starfield Backrooms
Synopsis:
Inspired by SCP lore, this mod for Starfield sees the player enter a mysterious door into an unknown location from which they have to escape. Only by solving various puzzles throughout 3 very different interiors, all while struggling to survive encounters with dangerous anomalous creatures, can the player hope to return to safety.
Team Size: 3
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My Role: Systems Designer
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Development Time: 1 month
My Contributions
- 12 custom scripts
- 3 custom enemy NPCs with custom AI packages
- 3 puzzles
Planning
Collaboration was crucial for this project as my creature designs needed to align with the level and quest designer's visions. I worked closely with the level designer to ensure the creatures made sense for each space and moved as intended. Since this mod is based on existing SCP lore, the creatures needed to make sense as anomalies from that universe while also staying true to the quest designer's plans for progression through the levels and the lore.
The sewer puzzle allowed for more creative freedom on my end since it was primarily a gameplay challenge, while the forest puzzle required collaboration with the other designers to tie it into the story. We eventually came up with the idea that this puzzle would be directly related to the level as a whole (the ceiling lights), and the creature's behavior (avoiding the light).
Anomalies (Enemy NPCs)
Office Level: Entity 328
Team Collaboration
For this creature, I mostly worked with the level designer. The space for this creature was fairly small with a lot of tight corners and corridors. Both the quest and level designers also wanted the creature to be something that makes a lot of noise for the player to hear when out of sight.
Initial Design
With the information I had from the other team members, I landed on using a biped since their footsteps tend to be louder than most other creatures. I set the creature's behavior to "curious" at each sandbox marker because it caused the creature to make strange noises for the player to hear. Also, in order to stay true to the source material, I made it so the creature would always kill in a single hit, no matter the player's level, and ghosted it so it couldn't be killed.
Feedback Received
After my first iteration of the creature, I showed it to the quest and level designers. Their initial impression was that the creature was too fast, but didn't attack fast enough after catching up to the player.
How Feedback Shaped the Design
After discussing how the creature's speed was essential for maintaining fear and intensity, improving cornering, and reducing delays between chasing and attacking, we decided to keep its speed unchanged. However, I agreed the attack animations were too slow and easy to dodge, so I increased their speed to make the creature more threatening and encourage players to escape quickly.
Problem & Solution
- Problem: During testing, it was observed that the creature would, rarely, pop up into the ceiling. - Solution: This seemed to be due to the initial size of the creature since its head was almost to the ceiling. Shrinking the creature by ~30% seems to have stopped this from occurring.
Sewer Level: Entity 81
Team Collaboration
The level and quest designers wanted the sewer level to focus more on eerie exploration than constant danger. To that end, I was tasked with creating a creature that wouldn't stand out as much. It needed to be something that wasn't as much of a threat as the creature in the first level, and it needed to be confined to a smaller area.
Initial Design
I designed a smaller, slower creature confined to the deep-water area of the level, enhancing the eerie atmosphere by making them hard to see. Multiple of these creatures were added to increase suspense and challenge as they could surround the player while in the water.
Feedback Received
For the most part, the other designers were happy with my initial design, however, they didn't like how this creature could also kill the player in a single hit. This was due to it being easier/more likely for the player to get hit while in the water, which could lead to frustration.
How Feedback Shaped the Design
After coming to a compromise with the other designers, I decided to reduce the amount of damage these creatures dealt. They now only deal about a fifth of the player's health in damage per attack. However, I increased their movement speed to help deal with the player's tendency to constantly jump out of the water, and to help make sure the creatures were able to land at least a couple hits more consistently.
Problem & Solution
- Problem: Initially, I wanted the creatures to jump out of the water randomly to scare the player. As far as I could figure out, this proved to be beyond the capabilities of either me or the engine itself. - Solution: I instead made the creatures large enough to where the tops of them were sticking slightly out of the water, like a crocodile. Though not as startling to the player, it was creepy and ended up being a good alternative to the jumping.
Forest Level: Entity 123
Team Collaboration
The level and quest designer had picked out a specific creature to use for this level since it tied in with their vision of the lore. We wanted this creature to mirror the first level's fast and deadly nature, but to also include a unique mechanic tied to the level's lights.
Initial Design
This level is quite dark, and since the creature was supposed to be more of a lurking predator that hides in the shadows, I gave it an inky black skin. I also came up with a way, using trigger volumes and a custom script, to keep the creature from entering the lit areas of the space, which would give the player safe zones.
Feedback Received
It was originally far too easy to avoid the creature, even by pure chance, due to the size and layout of the level. Luckily, my first attempt at getting the creature to avoid the lights worked out as I envisioned and both the level and quest designers like it.
How Feedback Shaped the Design
To address concerns about players not encountering the creature, I proposed a solution more practical than altering the level layout: increasing the creature's speed to maintain aggro on the player and scripting a switch to teleport the creature to a nearby spot, ensuring at least one encounter and adding a potential jump scare.
This script controls what happens when the player enters, or exits, one of the lit areas of the level. Entering a light switches the creature's AI to a curious, non-aggressive state, preventing it from entering the lit area. Exiting the light restores the creature's aggressive behavior.
Problems & Solutions
- Problem: After some playtesting, we found that the creature would sometimes pop up into trees, or even into the cave rocks. - Solution: I had to place numerous nav-mesh occlusion boxes throughout the level and regen the mesh. - Problem: The ceiling lights were too similar to the flashlight so it because difficult for the player to differentiate where their flashlight started/ended and where the light from the ceiling started/ended. - Solution: I ended up changing the color of the ceiling lights to make it more obvious where the safe zones were.
Falling Holes
Puzzles
Team Collaboration
This puzzle only required working with the level designer as it didn't pertain to the story. I proposed a grid of holes in a floor requiring the player to choose the correct ones to fall through to reach the exit. The level designer then built out the room for me to use for the puzzle based on my requirements for the puzzle.
Initial Design
At first, the level designer and I tried to create the puzzle using only 6 holes in the floor. I came up with the idea to use glowing decals on the walls that would serve as clues to the player for which hole to jump down. The player would need to jump down three correct holes in a row to get to the end of the level.
Feedback Received
Six holes made the puzzle far too easy. Also, only using decals for the correct holes each time made the clues too obvious. The paths between the holes were also too wide and easy to navigate making it highly unlikely the player would fall off.
How Feedback Shaped the Design
I settled on having a grid 9 holes separated by much thinner paths. I also added glowing decals to all of the holes with only the correct holes having a brighter glow. This made it less obvious they were clues, but not to the point where players couldn't figure it out.
The trigger script above is placed on all of the volumes in each of the 9 holes. When the player falls into one of these triggers, this script calls a function in the puzzle handler.
The puzzle handler checks which trigger volume the player enters. For a correct hole, the player is teleported back to the top, the next correct hole is activated, and the clue updates to that hole. For a wrong hole, the player is teleported above the water with all the creatures, and those creatures are teleported to surround the player as a wrong answer penalty.
This process continues until the player jumps down all three correct holes in the correct order, which then teleports the player tot he level's exit.
Problem & Solution
- Problem: The only real issue I ran into while developing this puzzle was how to get the scripting to work. In my head, I knew what it needed to do, but I wasn't sure how to implement it when there were multiple parts involved that weren't directly related. - Solution: I got help from my level designer, who had made a similar style puzzle before, and they taught me how to use a separate script on an object that is called by each of the individual parts of the puzzle. This centralized the functionality of the script while being able to take in multiple separate components of the puzzle.
Light the Lights
Team Collaboration
The final level's story involves the power grid having been damaged by an anomalous creature. This inspired my idea for the light puzzle. We worked together to figure out how the level needed to be laid out to ensure plenty of visibility to the lights the player would interact with. It also needed to make sense, quest-wise, for why the player needed to solve this puzzle.
Initial Design
Given the facility's electrical issues, I designed a power management puzzle where the player must turn on all the lights by pressing buttons that each control specific ones. The quest designer would explain this mechanic via the story. Once all lights are on, they remain lit, repel the creature, and activate an exit portal.
Feedback Received
The puzzle was too difficult and time consuming to complete. There were 12 total lights with 4 buttons controlling them. Two of the buttons only corresponded to 3 lights, and the other two controlled 4 lights. There weren't enough overlaps in the controls.
How Feedback Shaped the Design
I ended up removing one of the lights, making the total 11, and made each button control 5 lights. This resulted in a puzzle that could be completed in only 5 button presses (if you know the right order), but also made it much easier to complete, even accidentally, without spending a ton of time on it.
This puzzle operates like the sewer puzzle, with buttons triggering functions on a puzzle handler. Pressing a button toggles its associated lights on or off, adjusting a global variable accordingly. When the variable reaches 11, indicating all lights are on, the puzzle is complete.
Problems & Solutions
- Problem: The toughest part of designing this puzzle was figuring out whether or not it would even be solvable. - Solution: Using the knowledge of what the final solution would look like (all of the lights lit), I worked backwards to the beginning state. I drew a diagram of the light layout and figured out how each button press would affect the puzzle to come up with an order of button presses that would solve it.
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