Alone - Closing Down Beta

With Beta over, our vision for the Alone is coming into full view. The environment is really making an impact with new textures and lighting added.

Speaking of lighting, the entire game world has just been illuminated. Despite what the Unreal Engine editor window displayed, upon building production lighting for the Beta final, we received overwhelming feedback that the game was simply too dark, especially in the corridors. Apparently that's a thing even in horror games. Thus corridors have been lit with a series of emissive material sources to maintain some visibility even when the flashlight is off. Flickering lights have proved very effective in creating interesting environmental spaces.

Creeping around those spaces are the game's enemies, which have seen major behavioral changes since Alpha. No longer do enemies simply enter into an all out sprint towards the player, but rather attempt to flank using alternate pathways. They are also now capable of leaping head first after the player through ventilation shafts. This addition to the enemy's navigational capabilities was met with a great deal of positive feedback. The proximity of the enemy to the player now distorts the player's visibility with colour distortion, noise, and motion blur, adding to the intensity of an encounter.

As the player progresses along our newly implemented objective system, enemies continue to spawn, increasing the overall difficulty. Our objective game-play sees the player emerge from stasis, embarking on a mission to investigate the ship's central / vital systems and search for a means of escape. Further to an in-game map which has already been implemented, we plan to include a objective directional arrow (which can be toggled on / off) to help guide the player through the maze-like vessel.

More on this as it develops.

Team: Role:

Daniel Spiteri Team Lead / Level Designer / Producer Zachary Rault Designer / Producer

James Koehne Programmer

John Ikonomou Programmer

Brodie Martin Asset artist / Texture Artist

Blake Crane Character Artist / UI Artist / Texture Artist

Jakob Dillon Environment Artist / Texture Artist

Murray Lorden Sound Designer

Brendan Barnett Voice Actor

Xanthe Folan Voice Actress

Alex Haslam Special Thanks