ESCAPE REX MANOR
ROLE
Lead Designer and Producer
DESCRIPTION
As creative lead, conceptualized, pitched, led, and helped execute the game to Ninja Kiwi. Co-designed all levels, designed integrated puzzles & card system interactions. Specified, designed, and polished all NPC behavior, achievements, level specific interactions. As most suitable candidate, was instated as Producer after former Producer was dismissed.
PITCH, CONCEPTUALIZATION
As the final project of the masters, this was essentially our thesis. Our project client was Ninja Kiwi, and the brief was to combine two game genres into one game.
My game pitch was chosen and reiterated upon for a couple weeks until the designs were solid. This took so long because our combination of card mechanics and puzzles were an interesting, unexplored type of gameplay and there were many pitfalls we had to address. We went through a rigorous process of talking about each mechanic, figuring out the logistics of them:
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Implementation feasibility
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How they tie into the other mechanics established
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If it was something that logically worked in the context of the game concept
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If it fulfilled the brief
If at any point each game mechanic failed we would have to return to the drawing board and figure out a new implementation point. Each designer battered against the weak aspects of the game until we had a good prototype for the second presentation.
FINAL GAME PITCH
"ESCAPE REX MANSION" is a real-time horror puzzle game, where your guide a little cute raccoon through a dangerous mansion, inhabited by an evil crocodile. Use magical cards to manipulate the environment and lead the poor creature to safety!
GAMEPLAY TRAILER
OFFICIAL TRAILER FOR E.R.M.
Our intended goal was 3-5 minutes of polished, intriguing gameplay.
The goal of this video was to demonstrate a potential full run of our game. There are plenty of other interactions to explore and alternative ways to solve obstacle puzzles.
LEVEL DESIGN AND GAMEPLAY
LEVEL DESIGN
DESIGN
Levels came with unique design challenges. I realized that creating a game where most objects in the scene are interactable means that all aspects of design are heavily intertwined. Designing the levels was simultaneously building the environment and creating layered/chained reactions. On top of that, we also designed and balanced cards with abilities that affected the environment in a controlled way. From a technical standpoint, this means seamlessly blending physics-based and scripted interactions at runtime.
ATMOSPHERE
For each Level, we carefully designed post-processing effects to highlight scene elements and enrich the game atmosphere. This can also be observed when the scare meter fills up: Sylvester will experience dizziness by increasing intensity of effects. I directed the environment to impose the presence of Rex everywhere: the moldy furniture, broken floorboards, and unwelcoming atmosphere all contribute to the mood of the game.
GAMEPLAY
OVERVIEW
Clearing the path for Sylvester is the player’s goal. If the timer runs out before the current obstacle is cleared, Sylvester will panic and find the quickest way forward, even though this will always guarantee death. He takes scripted paths past each obstacle and dynamically jumps when necessary; this is aided by quick animations and allows for enjoyable repeat plays. There is also a fast-forward button that players can press to speed through reactions when Sylvester finds a path to the next obstacle.
PLAYER MOVEMENT
Sylvester moves independently, and cannot be controlled directly by the player. This reinforces the idea of manipulating the environment to affect his path. There are multiple scripted paths that can be discovered based on player interactions, which results in a wide range of fail paths, Easter eggs, and different approaches to solving levels. In order for Sylvester to fail, players must either run out of time, or accidentally kill him with an unpleasant object interaction.
PLAYER DEATH
Revealing Rex takes away his fear-factor, so he is a shadow that can move and jump-scare players at any time, creating additional tension. The scare meter also ensures that players stay alert. In the midst of this, this our animation team created onslaughts of funny death animations to enhance humor. This, combined with our death achievements, creates a positive feedback loop, even when players die.
Design document I wrote specifying cards, events, interactions, success/failure at node. More of my GDD design work can be seen here: Condensed GDD.
PUZZLES, CARDS → INTERACTION DESIGN
CARDS
PSEUDO-RANDOMNESS
Each obstacle is interacted with an optimized card system designed to minimize player frustration through pseudo-randomness - a feature that cycles cards evenly and reduces duplicate cards. This was refined through iterative testing and balancing.
THE FIVE CARDS
I specified 5 main card interactions: there’s are two elemental cards; Fire, a card that removes objects from the scene through burning them, and Freeze, a card that freezes objects and deactivates objects adverse effects. Additionally, there are physics-based interaction cards which are the Levitate and Push cards. These cards apply force horizontally to an object, pushing it in a player specified direction and lifts an object upwards, respectively. Finally, we have a sound card that activates an objects sound effect if applicable, resulting in Sylvester experiencing a jump scare which can be used to his advantage.
PUZZLES
OVERVIEW
The puzzles within each level and between objects are not designed to be a challenge, but rather as an opportunity to explore, creating a fun and rewarding experience. Chain reactions between objects cause unexpected results and in some cases provide additional rewards through collectable notes, easter eggs, and death achievements. All death achievements are visible within the Secrets menu.
OPTIONAL PUZZLES: NOTES
Following well-established design principles, we appeal to completionists by hiding collectable note fragments in each scene. This enhances re-playability and encourages experimentation with various interactable objects. Additionally, collecting note fragments uncovers hidden lore.
Card art styles I explored and drew for the art team for inspiration. I tried different borders, hierarchy of information, type of artwork (cartoonish vs semi-realistic) and left the choice of the final cards up to the art lead.