The Dark Pictures: Little Hope PS4/XB1/PC - 2020
DON'T PLAY ALONE...
Little Hope - the Second game in The Dark Pictures Anthology. - a series of intense, standalone horror games – will be playable in multiplayer! There are two modes - Shared Story (online 2 player co-op) and Movie Night (up to 5 players offline couch play).
-Abandoned and all alone, four college students and their teacher become stranded in an isolated town miles from anywhere after their bus crashes in bad weather. Trapped by a mysterious fog in the town of Little Hope, they search desperately for a means of escape whilst visions from the past haunt them from the shadows.
Roles and Responsibilities
- Scripting the moment to moment logic to ensure the branching narrative plays out correctly.
- Working in sequencer to select data to order. Implementing animation data and cameras to set up the cinematic moments throughout the game.
- Balancing and adjusting the pacing of sequences ensure the narrative hits the beats of the story. based on playtesting and Game Director Feedback.
-Blocking out the level game space sticking to the 2d plans of the town Little Hope. Adjusting and tweaking the moment to ensure the beats playout in a logical way and are paced correctly.
Contributions.
As a Designer on Little Hope the job revolved around switching between a Level Designer and a Cinematic Designer quite Frequently. I joined the project just after Pre-Production at the stage where Mo-cap shoots were being done and levels were getting blocked out in Engine.
My job from the start was implementing the base level flow, Scripted events such as Jump Scares, Interactions and Triggers for the character Dialogue. It was also using my cinematic Knowledge to set up the sequences with cameras and animation data to help craft the film-like shots that would make up the majority of the game. It would also entail setting up the interactive Sequences too the ones that would be used for the QTE moments present in the game.
The few levels I had a big contribution to were Reunion, Pursued and Heavy Burden.
Reunion
I worked on a good portion of Reunion, Reunion was a scene where after the bus crash the group end up split up from each other. Starting with a conversation about what happened and the next course of action the group decides to see if there is a way to regroup further down.
Both groups set off and explore the area one down a bank and the other on the road. Eventually the group come to a locked fence and have to work together and open the fence up.
This level was an early one in the game which showcased both player exploring different areas having to ensure characters stayed in sync but also having different experiences.
Pursued
Pursued was a level midway through the game. I primarily worked on the chase section with the characters Taylor and Daniel. This was a scene that got a redesign midway through so I primarily had to create the chase using assets and animations we already had in the game. This scene the characters wandering the street get ambush by their demons and a chase is afoot. This scene also used the hotswap feature where as you progress with one character the camera and control would then go to the next character. Any mistakes you made as the first character would impact the second characters chance of success. In multiplayer you would see the character perspective you are playing but the mistakes would impact player 2.
Heavy Burden
Heavy Burden was a level near the end of the game. The accumulation of them going back to where it all started. The part I worked on the most was the fight outside the house. This is where we first started to try the hotswapping, me and a camera artist was working to figure out how to make it work in a fight with it all looking seamlessly.