Deep Space Survivor
Deep Space Survivor
This was a school project, completed as a solo project. This was meant to be a small puzzle game, with the player running around a space ship, solving various puzzles to fix the ship up. I designed three simple puzzles that could be incorporated into the level design.
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Level Design
Act 1
The first section of rooms is a maintenance area, its dark and cramped. I wanted to evoke that sort of dark claustrophobic feel to the area.
Power Core
The power core was the first room, the idea was it should be kind of imposing and sci-fi looking, with strong blue lights, located at the back of the design, it would start depowered, waiting for the player to interact with a stand with a power on button, signified by a faint blue light, once interacting with the stand, the room will light up, indicating that the power is restored.
Maintenance Room
The maintenance room, even when power is on it has low light settings, the maintenance area was made to be dark and dim to have that sort of dark feel to it, with a few boxes lying around, this room acts as a sort of hub area for the first act.
Engine 1
The first engine room was made to make the player feel kind of small compared to the huge engine parts.
Engine 2
The second engine is very similar to the first one with a different catwalk to facilitate a different puzzle.
Maintenance Corridor
The lower levels of the maintenance corridors which were made to be dark and cramped, to cause a sense of claustrophobia and to really sell the corridor feel to it, and the low lighting really helps.
Storage Room
The Storage room is a small simple room with shelves, meant to store some parts and tools.
Turret 1
The turret room and ammo room are actually the same room, with a divider that allows a belt of large shells to pass from each room into the ceiling, with a computer terminal hanging down from the ceiling, the circular room was meant to give the idea that the room in the interior of a turret structure.
Ammo Room
Ammo room was made to look a little messy, I wanted it to look like shells were just strewn around.
Server Room
The server room was just a simple rectangle as all the elements that would make the room interesting would be comprised of the puzzle elements, lit by a light blue light to be the main light source in the maintenance room and also allow the player to see what they are doing while doing the puzzle.
Act 2
Act 2 takes place in the residential section of the ship, so it needed to be bright and well-lit to contrast with the dark and cramped maintenance. As well as being more open with less cramped spaces.
Main Hallway
The halls were made to be wide enough as not to be too cramped and feel comfortable to work in. Each of the residence rooms is the same size but was furnished differently from each other the hallway was made to be brightly lit to heavily contrast with the maintenance areas.
Turret 2
Turret 2 is a copy of Turret 1 and was copied over and rearranged to fit the hallway. with a few extra things added for the sake of the puzzle.
Bedrooms
The residence rooms were built into the hallways, and each was uniquely furnished to give the feeling that each room was unique while still containing similar elements.
Maintenance Hall
The maintenance corridor was expanded to mirror the hallway intersection with a section that branched into the kitchen, like the other corridor isn't as well lit as the upper rooms. A pillar fills up the central area here to act as a ship component.
Living Space
The living space consists of a couch and a TV, it's supposed to be a more open space to encourage lounging and eliminate the claustrophobic feel of a lot of the halls and corridors seen in the rest of the ship, there is a secret corridor hidden at the end that will be revealed later to complete a puzzle.
Kitchen
Next was the kitchen area, a lightly lit area with a dining table and some counter tops with a ladder area in the back.
Act 3
This part only comprises of a single puzzle, the area was designed to be sleeker than the residence area, since it comprises of the cockpit and a briefing room, the yellow light offers a different feel than the rest of the ship, I picked yellow and orange to evoke a sort or working kind of feel, I didn't want it to be the same as the residential lighting.
Bridge
The Bridge is where the final puzzle rests, it was given an interesting shape with a window and kept empty for the time being as the puzzle elements make up most of the interior. I wanted a big window to show off a large amount of outer space.
Briefing Room
Next was the briefing room which was simple, it just needed to be a simple room with a meeting table in the room.