Nordic Nightmares

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About the Game:

Waking up as a small child in the dark of night, players must find their way home as the current flood cuts off the regular route. Terrified by the darkness, the child’s diminishing sanity also limits their range of vision, forcing players to seek out light to shake off some of their fear. Torches and abandoned campfires provide a welcome break, but the peace is limited:
The Naddi, a mythological creature, roams the islands, ready to devour any human it finds. Though shrines offer protection, players must navigate the unknown landscape while avoiding the monster’s perception. Dodging by hiding from its sight or using the dark shadows – which in turn increase the child’s fear – will only help so far:
To cross to new shores, players must repair broken bridges with planks they must find.
Not only do these noises alert the Naddi, but the diverging pavements can increase the sound level. This may startle the bird-like Utburdur scattered across the map. The Naddi also gathers clues from its surroundings and can tell when a human is present, since torches don’t light themselves.
As players progress, they can make use of rune-engraved totems, which act as checkpoints from which they can continue if caught by the Naddi.
For those who tend to get lost, the child will offer hints on how to proceed.

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My tasks:

Perception system:

As the Naddi is the only enemy, adjusting its perception of the world and the player was crucial. Receiving clues from the player about their presence increases an „Awareness“ meter, which changes their behaviour. It automatically decreases when no information about the player is perceived. In addition to the usual sight and hearing, each of which has three areas of increasing effect, the Naddi also has a sense of nature. As a protector of the environment, his awareness increases when the player walks through bushes or tramples mushrooms.
Apart from the player himself, changes in the environment are noticed by comparing the current stati with the last one memorised.

Behavior-design:

As roaming the unconnected islands was not an option, a path system was created that teleports the Naddi to the appropriate island according to the player’s position.
To add to the challenge, difficulty and immersion, the Naddi also behaves according to different states that correspond to his level of awareness. For example, he’ll only stop patrolling if he’s only „suspicious“, and will inspect areas off the current path if he’s „alert“ or „aware“.

Trailer / gameplay footage:
As the final presentation required trailer and gameplay footage, the videos had to be planned, shot and edited. Working with the lead designer, the footage was recorded and the planned cuts were executed, iterated and finalised.

Interactable elements:
Because the player has to manage their sanity, torches and safe zones were designed. Activating these would increase the player’s sanity – but could also scare nearby Utburdur, which would alert the Naddi. As well as light and positive elements, the player could hide not only behind obstacles, but also in shadow zones, which would increase the loss of sanity but render them invisible to the Naddis‘ direct perception.

Playermovement:
The level contains different terrains, resulting in different levels of footstep noise for the player. To keep the noise under control, the player can switch between walking and running. Walking is quieter but much slower than the Naddi, while running makes more noise as the player covers more distance at a speed comparable to the Naddi.

Implement animation / sound:
As Naddi, Utburdur and Player needed to trigger different animations and sounds depending on the situation, the switching of these was handled in their respective behavior scripts.

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Changed plans:

Milestones / production timeline:
Some hero features, such as the checkpoint system and the tooltip guidance, were implemented very late in the process. As they affected the behavior of Naddis and Utburdur, testing became increasingly difficult. To reduce the risk, the complexity of both was reduced to separate them from each other. In the simplified versions, the Utburdur served a purely decorative and atmospheric purpose. The final behavior of the Naddi was to follow the active path, chasing the player when his attention was exhausted, or returning to his route when he lost track of the player.

Level two:

As a game design hybrid, I was responsible for the design and creation of a second level. A clear requirement was to create a visually different biom without increasing the artist’s workload too much by using existing assets. As the first level takes place on a flooded beach on several small islands, the second level is set on the cliffs towards the interior, divided by canyons and a few rivers. Instead of fishing huts and boats, abandoned farms, camps, wagons and ruins define the different regions.
Due to the changes mentioned above, the testing and polishing of level two had to be completely cut due to priorities.

Critters:
We also wanted to emphasise the quiet environment and the absence of humans with critters such as crabs, mice and harmless birds. They were meant to be mostly decorative, and only trigger the Naddis‘ natural sense of deliberate disturbance.

Player actions:
As well as the option of stealth and further noise reduction, players should collect and throw stones to distract the Naddi or scare the Utburdur or critters. Forced to inspect the area, the Naddi’s movement would allow players to perform loud actions or cross tight spots.

Story:
The current story of a child waking up in the darkest hours of the night after a day of fishing and trying to find their way home should have been expanded. In addition to the lore behind Naddi and Utburdur, the setting should have been presented through found pages of a diary, or information volunteered by the protagonist upon encountering certain scenarios.