Area 12: Logistics

  • First Person Tactical Shooter with Cosmic Horror Elements

  • Playable in Singleplayer or Coop

  • Created as a Senior Level Designer for Affray Interactive

  • Available on Steam, PC

  • Developed over 4+ Months

  • Unreal Engine 4

  • Small Team

  • 45 minute runtime

This Level appears as part of the First Chapter of the Campaign

After waking up in a mysterious locale, your team of FBI agents must journey deeper into the Area 12 facility to figure out what’s going on and who brought you there.

Level Flow

(1) Players escape the Offices

(2) Players learn the Shootable Lock mechanic and about yellow cables

(4) Players crush the 3199 Spawn to exit the 3199 den and enter the Bay

(4) Players Traverse the Burning Doorway into the Control Room corridors

(4) While entering the Bay, Players spot the Burning Doorway

(4) Players gain entry to the Control Room and hit the switch that opens the exit

Production

Metal Detectors empower our human enemies by creating an investigable sound source. These sound sources add context to the level, create an immediately recognizable object to avoid, and allow additional connections to nearby electronics for puzzle purposes.

(4) Players enter the 3199 Den and are startled by its introduction

(4) Players enter Plumbing area to turn on the local sprinklers and disable the fire

> SCP: 5K

Gas Pipes

Players can interact with Valves that correspond with Pipes carrying Gas throughout the level. Interact Actions on a Valve open or close the connected Pipe, Activating or Deactivating Pressured Gas that comes from Designer-placed emitter points on the Pipe.

Shootable Locks

Doors can be closed and locked from one side. With a shootable lock, we can create gameplay where a player needs to get the right positioning and angle on a door in order to be able to open it later.

Metal Detectors

SCP: 3199 Introduction

Introducing the 3199 enemy was a challenge I was happy to undertake. I tried to take my usual approach to introducing new mechanics and combined it with how I’ve seen “the monster” introduced in some of my favorite films.

Teaser

When players enter the den of 3199 they encounter a shadow puppet of the monster. The player only gets a glimpse before the 3199 runs away.

Eggs

3199 Eggs populate the level’s nooks and crannies. If the player watches close enough, they can see that the eggs shake and rattle. They provide a bit of a visual cue as to what players are dealing with.

Darkness Encounter

Players run into their first 3199 Encounter while in total darkness. Armed with Flashlights and Nightvision, Players have to navigate the sidestepping and flanking behaviors of the 3199 enemy.

Hallway Encounter

Elevator Encounter

After the first 3199 Encounter, there’s a quick pacing and platforming break before running into them again. I wanted to create a narrow corridor where the player would have no choice but to face a 3199 head on. This utilized the 3199’s tendency to charge players to create a unique situation.

Towards the end of the 3199 area, we have a bunch of fledgling 3199s in a nest under an elevator platform. As you can imagine, calling the platform down does not end well for them, and all hell breaks lose as the surrounding containers full of 3199 burst open to kill the Player before they make it onto the elevator.

  • Spearheaded work on the Logistics Area during the .15 update dev cycle.

  • While working on this area, I learned about the company’s tools, processes, and workflows.

  • Performed blockout, prototyping of mechanics, and implementation of systems needed to create the gameplay scenarios we were looking for.

  • Suggested new features that could be reused later in the game and coordinated with other designers and QA to fix bugs that bookended my levels and theirs.

  • Suggested the revised introduction of SCP 3199 and worked with an environment artist and animator to create a space that properly presented the iconic character.

  • Improved the player guidance of existing spaces and worked to better tutorialize mechanic that appeared in later levels but were present in Logistics.

  • Created systems that tapped into our enemies’ perception abilities to make stealth a feasible and understandable method of play.

  • Prototyped mechanics that’d empower players to find their way through our dark and scary environments

Gameplay