Suburban Construction Site
This project includes a suburban house and a construction site that is hiding a secret. Scroll down to view detailed explanation of the level with schematics.
Feel free to download and explore:
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Windows/64-bit
version: 1.10
uploaded on 26 Jan 2023
My goal for this project was to create a whole level almost entirely with real assets from the Unreal Store. I chose a number of asset packs that contain modular building parts, furniture and construction meshes. I planned an area based around a suburban house in construction with something odd and peculiar about it and your objective would be to infiltrate it and find out what’s going on. To do this, you need to enter its neighboring house, climb to the roof and from there you can jump inside the construction site. Once you reach it you will find that this place is a hoax and it’s hiding an archeological dig.
Level Schematics with Details
I’ve divided the level into four distinct parts:
PART 1 - Starting Area / Outside the construction zone:
Objectives:
1. Figure out that the construction house is inaccessible from the front and you can enter it only from the balcony of the neighboring house.
2. To get to the roof you need to find a way inside the house. The only way is through the back yard. Find a way to get there.
You start in front of the construction site. I expect the façade and containers to attract the player’s attention first. Here there are plenty of opportunities to try out the character movement (climbing and jumping). You can climb all containers and jump on the other two or the 2nd floor balcony. This platforming section is designed to be traversed in different directions. The goal is to make the player comfortable controlling the character and to show them that the construction lot is inaccessible from there. There must be another way inside.
Since you can’t enter the site from the left, my goal is to guide your attention to the right side where there is a climbable fence door from where you can enter the neighbor’s back yard. There’s visible scaffolding with platforms right across the balcony of the house. I want to player to figure out that in order to get inside the construction site, you have to jump from the balcony onto the scaffolding platform. And to get to the balcony you have to find a way to enter the house.
PART 2 - Neighboring House Back Yard
Objective:
1. Now that you’ve entered the back yard, find a way to get inside the house.
Once inside the backyard, the player’s path is fairly linear and limited. Your need to circle the house clockwise to get into the only open door - that of the garage. On your way you may pass the veranda and you may come across two closed doors (to the kitchen and to the lounge room) where I intend to teach the player that closed doors can not be opened. Circling the house would also give the player an idea of the size of the building and arouse interest in what’s inside. You can peek through the windows and also get an idea what kind of place it is - who might live there. There’s a basketball course that may intrigue - one of the residents of the house definitely enjoys basketball. At the end of the path is the entrance to what looks like a garage.
PART 3 - Inside The House
Objective:
1. Explore the house and find a way up to the balcony.
The first floor of the house starts with a linear path from the garage, through the entrance hall and leads to the main hall. From there the player can go straight ahead up the main staircase. If they choose, they can explore most of the rooms on the first floor (a dining room, a kitchen, a living room) which form a circular path that leads you back to the staircase. Once you reach the second floor, the path becomes linear again. I closed most rooms there so that the player doesn’t get lost and so that they experience the rooms in their intended order for environmental storytelling.
I tried to give an idea of what kind of people live there in this house. The theme that I explored is power/achievement/trophy. Let me explain - the first floor living room is adorned with hunter’s trophies and a hunting rifle. I wanted to give it a rugged, traditionally-masculine feel - presumably the dad of the house is a hardcore hunter. On the same side of the power/achievement/trophy scale is the only accessible bedroom on the second floor that I’ve designed to look like a young basketball player’s room - presumably the adolescent son. Where those two manly energies meet (the hunter and the jock) is the gaming/entertainment area where their two worlds literally merge. As you move along the house you get from hunter’s aesthetic (living room), then through the entertainment space (first the old-school dad’s games - darz and pool table, then the son’s games - a console and TV with two seats and two drinks for dad and son to bond), then you move along the son’s basketball’s trophies and then finally to his basketball-themed room and the terrace where you end this part of the level.
I chose this specific theme for this house as I thought I could depict it clearly with the props that I had and also because the house has a lot of seemingly unused space (high ceilings, huge hall, way too much of it is open space that reminded me of some weird grandeur that would feel at home (pun intended) in a family of achievement-driven men - hunter/basketball player/gamer. For the kitchen I also followed a similar theme - it’s spacious and grand too. And if you look carefully, you might spot a strange symbol hung above the fireplace.
At the end of this part of the level you reach the son’s balcony from where you can jump to the construction site.
PART 4 - Inside The Construction Site
Objectives:
1. Explore the construction site.
2. Find out what this secrecy is all about - what is this place hiding.
Once you get inside the construction site the level loses its linearity and presents you with a space that is freely explorable. The theme here is that this is actually an archeological site disguised (sloppily) as a suburban house under construction. There’s some demonic door unearthed and its metal lid is about to be lifted with a crane. You can go straight to the bottom of the pit or you can roam around the place. There are plenty of platforms to jump on - scaffoldings, cranes and trucks. You can also find a way to enter the resting area behind the offices. I also included a way to climb a bit higher up the hill where you can have a good look at the whole area.
This is where the level ends. I hope you enjoyed it. Here’s a final batch of screenshots from that final area.
