THe mill

Starting development in early 2015, The Mill is a short form horror game inspired by PT and made using Unreal Engine 4. The goal was to create a narrative driven experience in the backdrop of a fully realized mill somewhere in northern Europe.

This project was particularly fulfilling as my research into the milling process and related structures helped to create a compelling environment to explore. Although the final version is linear in scope, the initial idea was to have the player visit and interact with each section of the mill.

Story Exploration and Research

While we knew we wanted to create a first person horror game, there were initially no ideas for a story. During our first brainstorming session, each of us came up with a handful of different stories and places to set them in. I wanted to come up with environments that felt unique to other games at the time and focused on three drastically different locations: a mill, a train station, and a dock yard. The team agreed a mill could make for an interesting setting as the differing machinery and variations in elevation created lots of opportunities for visual set pieces.

Talking with the team lead and learning about their experiences in northern Europe, I decided to focus my research on mills in that area. Regarding their processes, I created a document to share with the team that broke down each step and their related buildings.

As research progressed, I drew sketches based on blueprints and photos I found of the interiors of some structures. This led me to creating a very early blockout to further visualize how the buildings linked up and how we could properly utilize these spaces.

Prop and Encounter Placement

At this time in development, I started placing props and lights throughout the level as well as work on triggers for each encounter. These ranged from simple moments such as sounds playing or more complex such as the previously mentioned hallway segment.

During this section, the player enters the lower hallway of the sintering mill to find lots of lamps throughout. As they make their way down the hall, the overhead lights go out and a mysterious voice echos through the building. The lamps then turn on, casting black lights over the walls, revealing strange spots and hand written messages. assisting with asset creation when requested. While the main artist handled the larger items such as the tents, I created the decals and signs seen on the buildings along with a handful of smaller items such as tools on tables or wooden pallets.

Another encounter at the very end of the level involved empty rooms being filled with body bags after the mysterious voice calls out again and messes with the lights once again.

When not working on these encounters, I also assisted in modeling some of the props when requested. Most of these were smaller items such as tools laid out on tables and decals or signs seen along the outside of the buildings.

Blockout

With the level layout ready, I began blocking out the main locations the player would visit. This also helped to determine pacing throughout the game and gave us more info on how to incorporate the key moments we wanted. While many of these areas did make it into the final build with their respective props, the full path had to be cut in half so the project could hit its due date. This unfortunately resulted in a handful of encounters being cut and a complete rework of the inside of the sintering plant, turning a maze like interior into a single hallway.

Role: Level Designer

Contributions:

  • Researched mills in the northern Europe area along with the processes for refining metal

  • Created numerous sketches to visualize the overall scale, basing them on real world mill layouts

  • Mapped out the path players take through the environment

  • Blocked out the entire facility and planned out where each main building would be located

  • Set up each core encounter using triggers and sound cues as well as lighting and props

  • Assisted in asset creation where requested

Layout Sketches

With a better understanding of what to expect in mill environments, I started drafting possible level layouts. With each I aimed to incorporate the structures as they might realistically be positioned, keeping in mind we needed players to navigate between them. One defining feature I wanted to include was a river running through the middle of the area, possibly used to hydroelectrically power the mill. For sketch #1, the mill was build directly over the river, with in being rerouted through tunnels underneath. Sketch #2 was directly based on my original blockout as the river feature was much more obvious. The final sketch was a bit different as it didn’t include this river, but did place each section on a different elevated area.

During our meeting focused on discussing the layout, we broke down the aspects we liked and disliked. To help draft it, I plotted out the buildings in Photoshop and we started sorting through the pieces like a puzzle.

While the overhead was mostly based on the first blockout and sketch #2, it still incorporated aspects of the others including the different elevations and structural links.

Once completed, I printed out the rough and began sketching over that to plan out more specifics, such as encounters and where they’d be placed. This in turn led to a much more refined map and the one we planned to go with.

Final Build

Months of work later and the final build was ready. Although many elements we wanted had to be cut, we were still happy with the work and were excited to continue developing, improving on what was there and hopefully expanding on it as well. Unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts with the lead artist and a shift in priorities, it had to be abandoned much like the mill itself.