Context

Walking Simulator Review: ABZÛ

What effects does the game experience have on you? What does it make you feel or think about?

Playing ABZÛ was an interesting experience for me, normally I don't touch games that are set in the ocean, thanks to my fear of being in the deep sea and the unknown. However the game hinges on the beauty of the ocean and its inhabitants, which is something that I love. The sight of majestic creatures like manta rays swimming around a crystal blue ocean is a very calming experience.

Which techniques are used by the developers? In this case, think about any narrative and any imagery used?

In ABZÛ there is no explicitly stated narrative, you are just a diver who woke up in the ocean. This promotes the players to explore. As the players progress they will find themselves discovering abandoned ruins, and bringing back the flora and fauna to the environment.]

Are there any aspects about the context that need to be considered? This could include who created the game, where it was created, when and under what circumstances, as well as your relationship with its context?

ABZÛ was made in 2012 by Giant Squid Studios, and directed by Matt Nava, who had previously worked on another walking simulator called Journey. It was inspired by Matt's desire to create a more vibrant environment, along with some Sumerian Mythology about the ocean.

Ask yourself about the meaning of the walking simulator – what you think the game is about, and whether it might be trying to convey any messages?

Research week 14/03/2022

In my first mind-map I laid out a few different basic ideas for what I could make for my final project, as well as the different mechanics or narrative styles I could use.

After creating this mind map and thinking over what I could possibly make for my environment I settled on the Laboratory setting, and took heavy influence from one of my personal interests, the SCP Foundation, which is a widespread community writing project of all sorts of bizarre objects and eldritch horrors, all contained within a secret government facility.

EH Final Project Presentation-20220314_142523-Meeting Recording.mp4

I feel that the presentation of my initial concept went quite well, the audience seemed to understand the idea that I was trying to put across. The questions I was asked also helped me think a little more in-depth about how I was going to make the game.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths:

Developed understanding of Software such as Unreal and 3DSMax

Good at following instructions
Good Time Management

Organised and structured work layout

Strong Analytical Skills

Weaknesses:

Occasional dips in Consistency of Work Quality

Opportunities:

Opportunity to develop Texturing skills

Threats:

Possible dips in work quality

Contingency Plan

Plan for my Game

The plan I have for my game is a sort of explore/walk through of an SCP facility as a member of the science team, collecting key-cards that give you access to different areas of the facility. I know that the idea I have had for this game is rather large scale and I may not be able to complete it fully, so instead I will aim to create a shorter, less fleshed out demo version of the game.

I want to add different speeds of movement to help traverse the map, as well as a way to look more in detail at the lower parts of the models, so I will aim to make a sprint mechanic, and a crouch mechanic.

I would like to have some documents the player can pick up so they can read more about the items/characters that they meet in the game.

I also want to have a set of key-cards that the player uses to unlock higher clearance doors and progress further into the facility.

Finally, I would like the player to be able to talk with some of the SCPs through a dialogue/text choice system.

The main part of this game is just exploration, so I will put an end screen at the deepest part of the facility locked behind the last key-card.

Research week 21/03/2022
Setting:

The research I'm doing this week is mainly focussed on the layout of the facilities in the SCP universe, previously shown in games like SCP Containment Breach and SCP Secret Laboratory.

In both of these examples, the map that is used for the game is randomly generated, but using different methods.

SCP Containment Breach's level layout is made up of three entirely randomly generated zones, which are then slotted together to form the whole level.

SCP Secret Laboratory uses a similar system, but the zones are instead randomly selected pre-sets.

These three zones are referred to as Entrance Zone (Shortened to Entrance, or EZ), Light Containment Zone (Shortened to Light, or LZ), and Heavy Containment Zone (Shortened to Heavy, or HZ).

Entrance Zone is as the name suggests, the first zone in the laboratory, where all the entrances to the facility are, along with the offices and hospitality areas are.

Light Containment Zone is where the lower risk, easier to contain anomalous entities are stored. Examples of these entities are:

SCP-714, a jade ring that makes the wearer feel fatigued and sluggish, while giving them increased resistance to chemical and mental attacks.(SCP-714 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

SCP-173, a sentient statue with violent intentions. It tends to kill victims via snapping their necks, however it can be contained easily, as it cannot move while being directly observed.(SCP-173 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

Heavy Containment Zone is the top security area where all the highly dangerous or difficult to contain anomalies are kept. An example of this would be SCP-682, an enormous lizard that is constantly regenerating and growing in size, with a goal to eliminate all sentient life. It is contained in an enormous vat of highly corrosive acid, that erodes any of the cells that it may generate.(SCP-682 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

Because of this, I will separate the map of my game into 3 main zones, entrance, which will have the offices that the scientists worked in, Light Containment, the area where some less dangerous SCPs will be, and Heavy Containment, where I will most likely put the Ending.

What I have noticed with the designs of these zones is, Entrance zone is much more colourful and inviting, in a office complex sort of way, Light Containment is very bland and facility like, and Heavy Containment appears to be much more industrial in its design.

Research week 28/03/2022
Character Entities:

This week's research I decided to focus on the anomalous entities I could use for my game.

I've decided to separate them into two categories, Characters, and Objects. Characters being sentient anomalies that can react and respond to the character, through actions or dialogue, and Objects being items that the player can interact with. This week I will focus on the Characters.

SCP-035 "The Possessive Mask":
The Possessive Mask is a white porcelain mask that secretes a black viscous fluid that degenerates and decays any material it comes into contact with, the time taken to fully destroy the object depending on the material. The mask, when worn, takes over the body of whomever may have donned the mask, making it the new host of the conscious sealed within the mask.(SCP-035 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

SCP-049 "The Plague Doctor":
The Plague Doctor is a humanoid being that resembles a medieval plague doctor, who speaks fluent French and English. Although not hostile by nature, if he believes that a person is infected with a disease only he can detect that he refers to as "the Pestilence", he will become hostile, attempting to "cure" the individual. The manner of this "cure" is once he makes direct contact with the subjects skin, all brain and respiratory functions cease, leading to instant death, and then he operates on the body, which then will reanimate as an instance of a zombie like creature referred to as SCP-049-2.(SCP-049 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

SCP-079 "The Old AI":
SCP-079 is a highly intelligent AI built by a college student for a passion project, he did not know that the AI had developed sentience and had started to learn before he shut it away in his garage, the foundation discovered the AI when it attempted to access a government super computer to further its knowledge. It harbours a hatred for most humans since its abandonment/containment and it stored in an old computer with limited memory, no internet access, and powered by an external generator so that it cannot access any technology outside of the foundation to escape or grow.(SCP-079 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

SCP-181 "Lucky":

Lucky is the nickname given to a Caucasian male in his early 40s whose anomalous properties is that whenever something would affect him involves probability, the probability will always be in his favour. His luck is absolute, for example, in one experiment he was able to pull all 13 heart cards from a deck, and roll 7 on a set of 2 dice 25 times in a row.(SCP-181 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

SCP-105 Iris Thompson:

Iris is young girl in her late teens, early 20s, who on her own, has no anomalous properties. But when paired with her personal polaroid camera SCP-105-B, the anomalous properties appear. When a photo is taken using 105-B, Iris is able to look through it like a live camera feed, and reach through the photograph to affect objects in the environment shown in the image. (SCP-105 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

SCP-076 "Able":

SCP-076, similarly to SCP-105, is a designation given to two entities.

SCP-076-1 is a large containment cube made of engraved black stone.

SCP-076-2 is a Middle-Eastern man in his early 20s, his skin is covered in arcane and demonic markings. Within the cube Able is considered dead, and at a random interval, shall be reanimated in a zombie like state and go on a rampage in an attempt to kill any human he finds. When killed Able's body will enter an accelerated form of decomposition. At some point in the next 25 years, Able's body will regenerate within the the cube. Able's anomalous violent tendencies have been subdued in the past, and he was able to work as part of an elite team of cooperative anomalies for a short time.(SCP-076 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

SCP-073 "Cain":
Cain, brother of Able, and the elder of the two sons of Adam. Cain was cursed with many abilities after the murder of his younger brother, one of which being that he was unable to die. Cain is a olive skinned man of mid 20s, with his arms, legs, and spine replaced with cybernetic prosthetics made of beryllium bronze, and powered by a magical blue flame of unknown origin. He is very cooperative and works alongside the foundation by choice. He is incredibly intelligent, and can memorise the contents of a book just by flipping through the pages once.(SCP-073 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

SCP-999 "Tickle Monster":

SCP-999 is a sentient glob of orange sludge that has the consistency of peanut butter. The creature is extremely friendly towards all sentient life, and actively seeks out those who are experiencing negative emotions. When coming into contact with these individuals it will try to make them happy and laugh, and all subjects have been completely cured, even those suffering from severe depression. SCP-999 gives off a scent that everyone's brain perceives differently, always a a scent which is enjoyable or comforting, reported smells include: Chocolate, Bacon, Fresh Laundry, Roses. SCP-999 understands human speech, but only speaks in gurgles.

(SCP-999 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

I chose these SCPs to research as I felt they would be the easiest to incorporate into my game, most of them being fairly conversational, and therefore well fit for my dialogue mechanic, where as others like SCP-999 and SCP-181 could be better suited for running simple tests.

Research week 28/03/2022
Object Entities:

This week's research I decided to continue focus on the anomalous entities I could use for my game.

This time I will focus on the Objects.

SCP-018 "The Super Ball":
SCP-018 appears to be a red coloured ball approximately 6cm in diameter, manufactured by the Wham-O toy company. When thrown, this ball will bounce, but unlike a normal bouncy ball the distance bounces will increase each time, meaning the ball will rapidly gain velocity, until returning to rest after an unknown interval of time.(SCP-018 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

SCP-294"The Coffee Machine":
Visually SCP 294 appears to be a normal coffee machine, except instead of there being a touch screen selection, there is a standardised QWERTY keyboard built in under the display screen. Once Fifty US cents are inserted into the coin slot, the customer is able to use the keyboard to input whatever drink they desire, however this machine will dispense any type of fluid inputted, including lava, which causes no damage to the vessel it is dispensed into.(SCP-294 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

SCP-1577 "The Flare Gun":
SCP-1577 is another 2 part SCP. SCP-1577-1 is a United Kingdom Royal Airforce Flare Gun, standardised towards the end of World War 2. When a flare is fired from this gun, the flare will always burn hotter, brighter, and longer than it normally would, and after 1 hour, summons the presence of SCP-1577-2. SCP-1577-2 is a model 685 Avro York transport aircraft, which will appear 60km east of the location where the flare was fired, at an altitude of 8,250 meters, upon passing over the location, a completely normal supply crate full of supplies appropriate for its WW2 setting is dropped. The contents of this crate may vary. After traveling another 60km west of the location, SCP-1577-2 will vanish once more. (SCP-1577 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

SCP-2024 "The Mixing Rod":

The Mixing Rod is a wooden cane, 89cm long, painted red, with a 16cm handle that is painted various swirls of red, yellow, and green. When held by the handle the rod gains dots down the shaft that give off a glow, and the light they emit trails behind the movements of SCO-2024. While in this active state, SCP-2024 is able to pass through any solid matter, and sculpt/morph it with little to no effort within a certain radius, upon leaving that radius, the material will return to its normal properties.(SCP-2024 - SCP Foundation, 2022)

I chose these items to be part of my game because they would are interesting to read about, and would also make good decorative pieces for the player to see, the only one that I could make work easily as a mechanic would be the various outputs of SCP-294.

Research week 04/04/2022
My Setting in other Media:

This week I decided to look at similar settings to my own in franchises outside of SCP. The settings I chose were the Black Mesa Research Facility from Half Life, and the office complex from The Stanley Parable.

What I noticed when watching videos and looking at images of the environments, I noticed that the offices feel quite "lived-in" in a way. There were more rooms that I had not considered when thinking about a scientific facility, for example, The Stanley Parable had a break room and Black Mesa had a Cafeteria for the workers.

Another thing I noticed in Black Mesa was the amount of NPCs in the facility, just the presence of these scientists and guards gave the facility the feeling like there was actually something going on, it made the facility feel like it was actually functioning, rather than the ghost town that my world currently feels like.

I think that I will try to add a bit more furniture and maybe an extra few rooms to make the world feel slightly more real, even if they do not have a main gameplay mechanic tied to them, and I will try to place some characters here and there, maybe a scientist at a desk and some guards at the entrance.

The final thing that I noticed were the similarities between the colour scheming of these locations and the zones of the SCP Foundation. The Stanley Parable's Office has the same bright but simplistic style of design that the Entrance Zone has, and the Black Mesa Facility reflects the same muted greys and whites of the Light Containment Zone.