Game demo video:
Game Map:
Player spawn point:
The player starts the game in the main hall. This area gives the player a moment to get oriented before the mission begins. And some initial dialogue is triggered to introduce the mission:
Dungeon:
In the dungeon, players will encounter enemies like zombie skeletons and need to collect key items for the mission. This area was once used for serpent blood experiments. The atmosphere is dark, requiring players to use a flashlight to explore:
Corridor:
The Serpent’s Sealing Place：
Research:
Dark Souls: Death Loops and Ambiguous Narrative
Dark Souls has had the most profound impact on my overall game design, particularly in how it tells a story that has already faded away through the environment. The game does not have a traditional linear narrative. Players must piece together the past glory and current decline of the world through item descriptions, architectural styles, and enemy behavior.
This kind of decentralized storytelling made me realize the charm of ambiguous narrative. It doesn’t need to directly tell players what exactly happened, but instead uses the environment to imply.
During the creative process, I didn’t start with scene sketches. Instead, I began with fragments of emotions and gradually pieced together the overall atmosphere and experience. These emotional fragments acted like puzzle pieces first the feelings and moods, which then slowly shaped into concrete images and spaces in my mind. By working this way, I hope players can more directly feel the emotions conveyed by the environment and experience the shifts in atmosphere, rather than relying solely on specific visual details.
In my game, the contrasting design between the sacred relics and the underground prison is meant to convey narrative clues through the space itself. Players won’t directly know the cause and effect through text, but will instead feel the traces of a completely collapsed order through the scene.
Why would there be a dark dungeon hidden beside a solemn relic? And in the dungeon, not only are books scattered everywhere and a statue of a goddess standing silently in the corner, but also skeletons quietly kneeling, seemingly still praying. These visual symbols do not point to a single answer, but are like scattered keywords, waiting for players to piece them together — perhaps they will interpret it as a betrayal, or a failed salvation, or the collapse that comes when faith becomes extreme.
In such a structure, the player is no longer a passive recipient of narrative, but an active constructor of meaning. I care more about the questions, emotions, and imagination they generate during exploration, rather than whether they “correctly understand” a predetermined ending.
Dark Meadow: The Pact
The visual and spatial design of this game shows the remnants of the old world：dilapidated hospitals, flickering lights, a mysterious white witch, and monsters wandering the corridors.
As the truth gradually unfolds, we realize that these monsters are not malevolent intruders, but “waste products” left behind from soul bargains or failed experiments—they no longer belong to this world, yet they are unable to leave it.
This concept had a direct impact on my game. In my demo, the enemies in the dungeon are not traditional monsters, but by-products created after the descendants failed to control Serpent blood.
Even though the experiments were abandoned long ago and the researchers have vanished, these lifeforms remain trapped deep within the dungeon, continuing to exist as if forgotten by history—terrifying yet sorrowful.
At the same time, the protagonist’s sense of unfamiliarity upon awakening in Dark Meadow inspired the direction for my player character design. I want players to enter the game in the same state as that awakening: knowing nothing about the ruins, and having to piece together their own understanding through exploration.
This sense of the unknown and the ambiguous makes me believe that rather than a clear narrative, a space that can be read is the most moving way to tell a story.
Other Research and Production Plan can view in week 1 entry:
Concept reflection
The Fall of the Descendants: Power’s Self-Corrosion
The descendants are former guardians of the ruins (now gone away and abandoned this place) — once symbolized the inheritance of ancestral faith and responsibility.
However, over the course of long years, they were gradually eroded by power and desire. Their role as protectors turned into a monopolized privilege. They could easily obtain Serpent’s blood, which eventually became a tool for controlling others.
When traditional belief loses its genuine spiritual core, leaving behind only a structure of power that can be inherited and exploited—can it still represent justice? In such a system, bloodline is no longer a continuation of faith, but a token of identity, a legitimate means of domination.
I think this concept reflects certain realities. We may have all seen systems that appear to still function, maintaining sanctity and authority in form, but in truth have long strayed from their original meaning. The downfall of the guardians did not come from external enemies, but from internal hollowing and the erosion of values.
The Blood of the Serpent: A Forbidden Power
I chose the Serpent as a central symbol because it carries complex meanings across many cultures. It is often associated with both enlightenment and downfall. The serpent can grant wisdom, but it can also bring catastrophe. In the Bible, it tempts humanity to eat the fruit of knowledge. In Eastern traditions, it is frequently linked to dragons, immortality, and the cycle of rebirth.
In my game’s narrative, the blood of the Serpent represents a forbidden power, a form of knowledge that exceeds the natural boundaries of what humans are meant to possess. The descendants tried to harness it to transcend the limits of their physical bodies or prolong their lives. This reflects their belief that they could take the place of gods and rewrite the natural order.
This concept also reflects real-world anxieties around certain technologies such as gene editing and cloning. As we continue to push the limits of ethics and science, we often lose sight of the consequences. When the power to create is amplified by technology without a corresponding sense of humility or responsibility, the result may be not progress but chaos and madness.
Reflection:
This project gave me a deep insight into the many challenges faced by independent game developers. Although I am not a full-fledged indie developer, the whole process allowed me to learn and practice various stages of game development in a comprehensive way. It was also my first time using Blueprints in UE5 to program interactions for characters, enemies, and items, as well as my first experience creating UI and Widgets.
During development, I had to balance visual quality, gameplay design, in-game prompts, difficulty settings, and the overall atmosphere, which is quite challenging for one person. For example, UI design is a field worthy of deep study, and the same goes for level design. However, with limited time and energy, it’s difficult to cover everything thoroughly.
In addition, due to unexpected problems and technical constraints, I had to give up some design ideas and visual effects. To maintain acceptable game performance, I changed the shading model from SM6 to SM5 and reduced the lightmap resolution for some larger actors. Without these optimizations, the game would have suffered from serious lag. Although these changes improved performance, they also reduced lighting quality and overall visual appeal.
During the packaging stage, I encountered code errors and navigation issues. While enemy navigation worked fine in the UE5 editor, in the packaged build enemies sometimes got stuck on walls and failed to chase the player properly. This problem didn’t occur in the test maps.
This experience improved my practical skills. When solving problems, I learned to prioritize game performance first, and then find a balance with visuals, gameplay, and other aspects.
Used assets and resources in this project:
1.Dark fantasy greatsword pack
Dark fantasy greatsword pack | Unreal Engine 5 + UNITY – Naked Singularity Studiohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xR6SHgfhPU
2.Morbid Pack
Morbid Pack Volume 1 – https://www.fab.com/listings/8b88ac2e-9b50-4381-91d1-46683a89178b
3. Serpent Model I Created in Last Semester — Collaboration Units
(Full process: modeling, UVs, texturing, rigging)
4. Gargoyle Model I Created in Last Semester — Collaboration Units
(Full process: modeling, UVs, texturing, rigging)
5.Texture repaint (arm, zombies, skeleton, gun)
In my discussion with Serra, she suggested that I try modifying the model textures myself. Assets like the gun and the arm are way too common and a lot of people use them, so I redrawed the textures myself.
Skeleton texture – white and black:
Gun:
Arm:
6. Game Tutorial：