Intro
Personal Project
Genre: 3D action game
Engine: Unreal
Date: 2021.12
My Role: Game Designer, Programmer, Game Artist, Technical Artist
Game Concept
Players need to play as Sisyphus, who pulls the boulder through a series of dangerous narrow mazes filled with metaphorical elements. Neither Sisyphus nor the boulder can hit the various deadly obstacles
In this game, Sisyphus represents us, and the different sections of the maze are metaphors for our different attitudes toward the absurdity of life.
(Unmute icon is on the bottom-right corner of the video)
(Unmute icon is on the bottom-right corner of the video)
Inspirations
In high school, my therapist recommended Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus, a book that inspired me to come out of despair.
Camus' Philosophy
Camus believed that each of us is the Sisyphus of Greek mythology - exhausting our lives, we keep running for new desires, just like Sisyphus kept pulling the boulder up to the top of the mountain, and then watched it roll down to the bottom, where he had to do it all over again
Dali's Surreal Painting and Buddahism
In order to turn the philosophical parables described by Camus into figurative levels, I referred to Salvador Dalí's paintings and Buddhist story, which also inspired absurdism in history.
Gameplay Design
The main character has two parts: Sisyphus and the boulder, which are connected together by a chain. Players need to manipulate this snake-like character through the narrow maze.
The chain is based on physical constraint, so it can bring some interesting experience: for example, the player can fold the character by leaning against the wall, but also need to be careful of the boulder shaking while moving.
Level Design
Camus describes several attitudes toward the absurdity of life. I made them into levels with different themes.
Level Blockmesh Prototype Overview
Mime Tutorial Section
In Camus' time, black-and-white pantomime was still popular. Chaplin's Modern Time inspired me to create this interesting stylized tutorial level. Players can learn how to move and pass through simple mazes.
Corridors in Shipwreck
In this section, the corridor will gradually become narrower, the number of jellyfish will also increase. Thus, turning will get more and more difficult. Players can become increasingly skilled at maneuvering their characters through different terrains.
The first attitude is despair and self-destruction. I created a level in a gloomy shipwreck where the player must pass through the winding corridors, which are full of poisonous jellyfish and levitating furniture.
Dali's Grassland
Then, players will enter this labyrinth full of elements of Dalí's paintings (melting clocks, eyes, piano keys, chessboard). Winds from different directions will cause Sisyphus to move and drift. Player can slow him down with obstacles to prevent hitting strange eyeballs with spikes.
Dali's work has elements of both decadence and Persistence. Therefore it is used as a transition part. After the dull and narrow shipwreck level, this section allows players to enjoy a smooth high-speed glide, like sand slide level of Jenova Chen's Journey.
The Persistent Hell in the story of Buddhism
Another attitude is turning to believe in something eternal. The Buddhist story possesses infinite reincarnation and an infernal hell. I made this level with the suggestion of my Buddhist friends.
In this part, the player need to sum up the skills and face the challenge of intermittently spewing “red lotus”(hell flames) and rotating "Dharma-cakra"(sacred wheel-like weapon of Buddhist) equipped with sharp blades.
Technical Details
Physics Constraint
The bendable chain between Sisyphus and the boulder is based on physic constraint system, allowing the boulder to swing with character motion
Water Effect
Using the post-processing system, a volumetric fog based on scene depth was made.
Then, I sampled layers of black-and-white textures with different velocities and tiling to produce the caustic effect, which can cover objects by gaining the scene normal and height information
Stylized Wind Area
Inspired by the wind effect of Tsushima Ghost, I used Niagara to spawn the spinning leaves and wind mesh with gradient alpha randomly in a box extent.
Red Lotus Flame based on Niagara
Two module scripts were used to extract the vertex and normal information of the static mesh, which allowed me to spawn the particles inside the lotus model in Niagara.
Eyes with Changeble Pupil
I used a noise texture to generate the veins on the back side of the eyeball. The pupil's size is controlled by a dynamic parameter.
Then, I put this eyeball into a blueprint. When player enter the collision, it will calculate the distance to the character, and change the parameter of pupil size.
Save Point
When the player enter the collision of this blueprint, it will record player's position and forward vector. After the character get destroyed, it will respawn at the last save point it passed.
In Blender, I created the model of Sisyphus and rigged the character to create a walking animation.
Character Animation
Stylized Jellyfish
I used a black and white texture to control the vertex offset of the jellyfish model.