What is The Shattered Peak?

The Shattered Peak is a survival horror game driven by narrative where players must surivive in a freezing cold environment chased by a dangerous entity to uncover the truth behind the mysterious events on a desolated island.

In the wilderness players can find tools for survival, wood to light up campfires and warm themselves up, letters and pages to put the story toghether.

Survival systems are seamlessly integrated with dialogues blended with the environment taking insipiration from Giant Sparrow's "What Remains of Edith Finch" in order to deliver narrative and give direction to players.

The game features diegetic UI and experience-oriented audio design to grant immersion in the atmosphere and the environment.

TRAILER

SHORT GAMEPLAY

Project Description

  • Roles: Game Designer/Project Manager
  • Team size: 10 people
  • Duration: June 2024 - October 2024

Ideation and Prototype Process

Ideation

I analysed survival games to outline the aesthetics that the genre must evoke in the player coming up with a list of possible aesthetics and dynamics. Some examples are:

  • Sense of urgency
  • Scarcity
  • Being on the brink of failure
  • Loneliness
  • Tension

I then organised the Ideation meeting by dividing it into 3 phases: Diverging, Discussion and Converging.

  • In the Diverging phase, all team members were invited to propose ideas without any constraints, with the aim of producing as many diverse ideas as possible.
  • In the Discussion phase, I introduced constraints on those systems and dynamics that would lead to design scope problems (e.g. close combat, branching progression/narrative, intricate AI systems) and the team was invited to discuss the ideas, highlighting a preferred and a less preferred elements.
  • In the Converging phase, the team formulated a concept based on what was discussed in the Discussion phase coming up with a concept.

I then refined the concept in a game idea and with the team identified the systems to be developed and assigned a priority for the prototype to each one, giving importance to the new key systems we wanted to include.

Prototype

During this phase I focused on creating the Pitch presentation and on laying down the GDD (read the full old version) structure on Confluence while overseeing the whole prototype development, giving assistance and design direction to other developers.

I organised test rounds on the prototype, collected and analysed players feedback which I then refined into a short Feedback Analysis document that I presented to the rest of the team. This approach allowed us to identify weaknesses early in the prototype and respond promptly by revising the concept and the systems involved and creating a more fun and engaging game loop.

Development Process

Following some of the suggestions made in the feedback document and other solutions found after further analysis and research, I modified the concept, creating a more solid concept that would solve the problems found in the prototype.

During the development period, my tasks included:

  • Design map layout, overall progression and pacing of the game;
  • Level design of game's areas including ;
  • Heavy testing of each part of the game to keep polishing the core design;
  • Filling the game design document;
  • UI and Menus design
  • The whole final polish of the game (light positioning, material creation, light functions, dialogues positioning, SFX and Audio)

Map Layout and Progression of the game

Progression was tied to the finding objects that allow the player to progress through areas in metroidvania-style.

Progression was meant to:

  • Direct players without putting them on tracks;
  • Leave breadcrumbs for players to determine the critical path on their own;
  • Limiting exploration through the use of skills and objects;
  • Reduce the backtracking to a minimum.

Challenge 1

We wanted to create a world that could give the illusion of open world but heavily direct players to avoid the extreme challenges that an open world could create.

And subsequently increase the challenge that each area put on the player.

Solution

  • We divided the whole map in areas where the player was free to explore, find resources to survive, find narrative elements and key items to progress outside those areas.
  • We designed those areas with landmarks and peculiar elements to make them unique from one another, and placed key items in each area to determine progression.
  • Created an extreme environment in darkness to push player towards a more conservative and safe playstyle.
  • Assigned a red number to each area to identify the creature level of aggression (higher number higher aggression) increasing difficulty as the number goes up.
  • Introduced the compass as one of the first items in the game.

Challenge 2

In total darkness players still felt lost even with the flashlight due to the open nature of the environment.

Solution

  • Used our dialogue system as points of relief during area exploration and tell the players they were going in the right direction.
  • Placed strategic lighting to direct players towards points of interests an orient themselves.

Testing

After the development of a satisfying version of the game that could return good feedback from players, I organised a new test round including players who had played the prototype version (now far removed from the current version) and players new to the game.

By collecting feedback and analysing the players as they played, I produced a new feedback document to illustrate the project achievements and failures. Read the document HERE.





If you would like to know more about the development of The Shattered Peak and my approach to design, please contact me using the contact details at the bottom of the page. Thanks for reading!

Documents

Game Design Document (old)

Old version of the Game Design Document created on Confluence. Contains highly detailed implementation infos and diagrams.

Read PDF

Pitch Presentation

Pitch created at the end of the ideation phase to present the idea to stakeholders.

Read PDF

Feedback Analysis 1

Feedback analysis based on the first round of tests feedback.
Used during to update the team on the game's weakpoints and the possible design choices and direction to take to mitigate them.

Read PDF

Feedback Analysis 2

Feedback analysis based on the second round of tests feedback.
Used during to update the team on the game state in proximity to realease and the results of design choices taken after the first test round.

Read PDF