DAN KÄRRHOLM
LEVEL DESIGNER / GENERALIST
STARGAZER
Genre
Point-and-Click, Puzzle adventure
Roles
Level Design, Game Design, 2D artist
Time
3 weeks
Tools
Unity, Perforce, Adobe illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
Stargazer is a magical point-and-click adventure game full of puzzles and mysteries. A young girl awakens to find herself in an enchanted tower full of old tomes and strange equipment. But who is she? And why can’t she remember?
MOODBOARD
DESIGN GOALS
The main goal was to make a point-and-click, puzzle, game, set in a fantasy world. We wanted the game to feel like 2D point-and-click games out there but set in a 3D environment. Style wise, we wanted a cartoon style shader but with outlines.
LEVEL BLOCKOUT
I wanted the library level to have multiple floors with bookshelves around the walls in which books and/or items could be hidden. The only way these books/items could be obtainable, was through some floating furnisher the player would raise through the different moon phases in the moon-puzzle. This idea was later scrapped due to complications with the nav-mesh and movement of water.
FINAL LEVEL
The final level is constructed by 4 floors, each with something for the player to collect, for example a key, crystal and the majority of books with clues to solve the zodiac and potion puzzles.
For set dressing I wanted it to feel like this part of the witches tower had been submerged for a long time so I added a lot of hanging vines and greenery. I also submitted a task for the artist to make a variant of the material/textures with moss and mold on them to match my vision.
I also designed the lightsource to be the floating crystal in the middle of the room, following the player as he/she moved up and down the tower.
2D GRAPHICS
To take some workload off the artists I helped out with the 2D-graphics we needed for the game. One of the biggest elements the player would see was the zodiac puzzle so that is something I worked a little more on. Other things I worked on are the various 2D items you can see around the game.
TELESCOPE RINGS / ZODIAC PUZZLE
When designing this puzzle, I wanted something "advanced" put at the same time simple. We decided early on that we would use 3 rings which had to line up to insert a "code" to solve a puzzle. I started with sketching out 4 different animals and stars alignments, but after some testing I decided to add another variant to some of the star signs and double the amount to make it a little more difficult.
The final result became: a dog, a bison, a unicorn, a pegasus, 2 different peacocks (looking in different directions), and a male and a female lion.
The first prototype of the rings I made in illustrator but had a too stylized style. We also discovered during testing that the "lense-cover" for the zodiacs not in focus was confusing for our players. After multiple iterations the rings took shape and became as they ended up in the game.
2D-ARTS
I Also worked on the different 2D-arts that can be seen around the game, for example the moon and the "sun" from the zodiac puzzle.
When designing the moon I had to keep in mind that it would get lit from different angles in the engine so as to simulate the different faces of the moon. To achieve this I tried to make it look 3 dimensional but at the same time have no direct light source. When it comes to the sun, I tried to keep to the same style as the rings.