Whale Fall is an Unreal 5 level design project I worked on for a month full-time. It's a blockout where I used typical AAA mechanics like climbing and shooting to create a gameplay sequence supported by a narrative.
The project takes place on a broken oil rig. You, as a player, get to be the first to explore it and find out what happened.
The project is done with the help of ALS (Advanced Locomotion System) created by Jakub W. It contains enemy AI logic, traversal mechanics, shooting, and more. Please be sure to check them out here.
Team: 1 person Tools: Unreal 5, Draw.io Roles: Design, Research, Testing Duration: ~1 Month
Gameplay
Design
Level Flowchart
1. Climbing up the anodes
2. Jumping to the container using the rope
4. Discover that the staff is killed
5. Jump over towards the helipad
6. Discover the portable laboratory
7. Enter engineering, fix the broken pipe
9. Get past the guarded area
3. Entering Accomodations, moving furniture away to progress
8. Climb around administration without getting noticed
10. Enter communications, find a zipline to move across
11. Enter drill control, open the trapdoor
12. Go down the drill, use the rope to jump to the platforms
13. Reach the large metal door, lift it up
14. Find the whale
Research
There were some things I paid attention to before I designed the space:
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Oil rigs are cramped with machinery and equipment, preserving the already limited space.
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Oil extraction is a complex process, where oil itself is only a part of it. The gas that often comes with it must also go somewhere, along with the dug-up dirt. The crew needs to be accommodated. Supplies need to be delivered. For the rig to look convincing, it has to resemble that system to some extent.
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The rigs come in different shapes and sizes. Some are mounted to the sea floor, and others float and balance themselves with water tanks. Making that choice early ended up being significant for the narrative.
For references, I looked at 3D models of rigs I found online on TurboSquid. More practical information can be found on YouTube, detailing the processes that run on an oil rig. As expected, the game Still Wakes the Deep was of help to this project, though its genre and playtime shaped its environment in a way I couldn't have benefited from in my project.
Development
1. The Structure
I planned to have some narrative in the game, so I started by outlining the general sequence of events. I intended for the gameplay to be mostly outdoors which is why, in this iteration, I mainly focused on the look of the environment. My initial attempts looked more like a city landscape rather than an oil platform but with more elements added, the space started to feel more cramped. For real rigs, free space is a luxury, which is something I wanted to show in my game too.
I designed the rig to be traversable only by two-thirds since making the player walk a full circle isn't exactly realistic.
2. The Details
At this point, I started to fill the insides of the buildings. Besides referencing the actual facilities that can exist on the rig, I paid attention to how each section feels. I realized that the buildings need to be smaller than they were initially planned to be since they have to feel right for the player. The ceiling got lowered and small rooms got even smaller. The game was intended to be linear, which allowed for the rig's base to be also reduced, following the shape of the buildings. Another way to make the rig look more authentic.
3. The Final Result
While playtesting, I finished the drilling section and added decorations to the roofs of buildings, despite them not being traversable in the game. I then added lights that made the rig look nice from afar but also helped the player navigate the space. I also finished scripting the enemies and objects, as well as implemented a GIF of a whale's eye for the end part. After playtesting, it turned out some sections needed major redesigning which was related to the capabilities of the enemy AI, the tools I worked with, and players' engagement with the game (more about which in Playtesting).
Playtesting
First Sketch
Before
First Sketch
Before
This area was greatly shaped by the behavior of the AI and the weapons. While I had the chance to tweak the numbers, I decided to use the preset system - where the enemies are less forgiving and always aim for a headshot. This resulted in frustrating playtests at first: players oftentimes tried to run through the enemies, not knowing of the available choices. My solution to that was to cover the lifeboat with something that presented a much clearer path, which was an overall positive addition. Making the first step became more intuitive while still preserving a chance for the rest of the enemies to put up a fight.
The building at the bottom of the picture was also pushed back. This is a quick solution to enemy AI: it has a slow response if a path towards the target isn't obstructed. The new design seemed to help and if the player isn't careful, three more enemies will start searching for them.
The Shooting Area
After
The Engineering contains a simple puzzle - the final door is obstructed by steam that comes out of a broken pipe and it can be removed by turning the valve. Since it's the only reason the building exists, I focused a lot on what it contains and the player's path - mainly finding ways to block the player's view and motivate them to engage with the environment. The result was the player discovering the solution before the problem - which misses the entire point of a puzzle. For that reason, I changed some things around: the valve is moved to the room players tend to visit last and the path to the final door is changed.
The Engineering
After
Conclusion
Looking back at the project, I can see several things I would've done differently now:
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The puzzles in my project almost feel like roadblocks because of their structure: first, discover the challenge, and then find the solution to it. This can work well in games with a heavy focus on immersion (like the immersive sim games that basically lack guidance), but within the scope of this project, such design can cause friction. A better approach would have been to follow Peter Field's example, where the introduction of the challenge enables the player to find the solution. Besides the much-needed guidance, the player is also locked from discovering the solution first, which is a much better way of doing it.
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The whale that's revealed at the end of the game does not have any kind of presence throughout the playthrough. While there are story bits that provide depth to the world, what I would do now is try to interpret the whale through the gameplay lens. Programming is not my expertise, but a simple camera shake or a rocking rig animation placed at the right time, followed by sounds (that I could've simply described in text) would've gone a long way. Given more resources, such spikes in tension can also be turned into puzzle sequences (as an example: making the player prevent the rig from turning over and collapsing), helping the game expand on its concept in a much better way.