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Breaking Space

Feature: Liminal Space, Stealth, TPS

Role: Level Designer (Team size: solo)

Year: 2023

Duration: 15h

Tool: Unreal Engine 5.0

Platform: Windows

Role​

  • Level Designer​​

    • Designing the whole structure of the level

    • Creating blackouts

    • Scripting gameplay sequences

    • Combat scenario design and setup

Introduction

The protagonist is a drug maker who is controlled by a drug trafficking organization due to his expertise in drug manufacturing and is unable to escape. The daily grind of working like a machine and the intimidation from the drug organization push him to the brink of collapse both physically and mentally. As a result, the drug dealers force him to use drugs to obtain temporary "happiness" in order to maintain his "productivity". In this level, the protagonist is set to imagine a surreal world after taking drugs. The things in this world are to some extent a manifestation of what he has encountered in reality, such as the fear of the drug trafficking organization, the obsession to escape, and the confusion and numbness about the future. The player's goal is to manipulate the protagonist to escape from the control zone of the drug trafficking organization.

​​Reference:  Breaking Bad

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Walkthrough

Design Statement

The protagonist's survival instinct collides strongly with the reality of being trapped in his imagination. Guided by the will to survive, he imagines step by step how to escape. However, the experience of facing the brutal drug dealers, in reality, has deeply imprinted in his mind, and these memories constantly warn him not to act recklessly and not to have any illusions about escaping. The protagonist's confused and anxious psychological state is precisely the situation of being trapped in a threshold space. To escape from here, the protagonist needs to be brave enough to face the unknown future in a dilemma, even if fate is predetermined, and break out of the threshold space to have a chance of survival. The spatial structure in the level is designed to help the protagonist escape step by step, while also trying to create fear and uneasiness similar to being in a transitional space in reality (the disappearance of the original stable state and the upcoming unknown future). Some of the text descriptions (memories of drug dealers) that appear in these levels will try to confuse and prevent the player from continuing to move forward.

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