sumra
Austin Edwards
- Level Designer -
- VFX Artist -
- Programmer -
Dani Messing​
- Prop Artist -
Ethan Sather
- Environment Artist -
Savana Pickett
- Character Artist -
Overview
Sumra is a first-person puzzle adventure game set in a fantasy Nordic environment. You play as a pilgrim who is journeying to the temple of the Summer Goddess in order to save your village from an eternal winter. You'll find the temple in ruins, and you must solve the ancient mechanisms in order to restore it and earn favor with the goddess.
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Sumra was the senior project for myself and two other students, with a fourth member joining us half-way through. We concepted, tested, and made every aspect of the project over a 20 week period. Despite our small group size, it was a blast to work on and we are very proud of the result!
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We also collaborated with Animation and Sound students during the second half of development.
Special thanks to:
Logan Hardin
- Sound Design -
Britanny Kartes
- Sound Design -
Ryan Baker
- Music Composition -
Benjamin Burke
- Animation -
Lynn Stillwell
- Rigging-
Awards
• SCAD Entelechy Awards 2020
1st Place - Game Sound
Finalist - 3D Game
Finalist - Game Trailer
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• Golden Thumbs Up Award
(Voted Best in Class)
Gameplay & Level Design
When designing the gameplay of Sumra, we wanted it to be elegant and intuitive. The gameplay of Sumra consists entirely of the player's ability to use their two hands, independently or together, using left/right click or left/right trigger. Every item can be picked up with either one or two hands. This means that the player will have to manage which hand or hands they are using at any given moment in order to solve the rooms and progress.
Room & Puzzle Design:
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Sumra is a series of rooms that each feature a puzzle for the player to solve. The goal of every room is to find a totem and place it on a pedestal by manipulating the environment. Each room gradually introduces new mechanics and adds additional challenges to this task. The design philosophy was to never put the player in a position where they had to figure out what to do, but rather how to do it by using skills they had already learned.
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With our gameplay and narrative in mind, I started by brainstorming puzzles and room layouts with pen and paper. I tried to individualize each room while still having every one mechanically build upon the last. I also designed the layouts to emphasize the particular gameplay elements they were using. Some key points I focused on were the player's line-of-sight when entering rooms and framing certain elements with architecture or using natural/torch light to draw the player's attention. I also wanted to eliminate any need for starting over, meaning the player would always be able to solve the rooms regardless of whether or not they got stuck or made a wrong move. At this point Ethan, our environmental artist, began to block out the levels and we began testing them as a team, as well as getting outside feedback. Lots of testing and iteration helped improve and refine the designs to what they are now!
After a small "entry room" that teaches the player about placing the totems on the pedestals, the first actual puzzle room contains a rotating bridge. This rotating bridge gives the player access to two separate platforms depending on its rotation. In this room, players discover igniting and extinguishing braziers in order to activate the temple's mechanisms, as well as getting a taste of managing the torch, totem, and snow items that they can carry.
The second room introduces my favorite mechanic, push-braziers! These structures allow the player to slide elevated, burning braziers along rails in order to reach burnable objects too high for the player and their torch. The hallways before the main room forces players to discover their ability to push by having a push-brazier blocking the entrance. This was later refined to also include a small rope and attached gate to further teach the player. Another iteration that was made was changing the falling pillar to a drawbridge. This was a good change because it was a much stronger visual goal for the player.
Throughout the process of game development, not every idea makes the cut, and that's what happened with the original third room of the game. This room featured a rolling boulder that could be guided in order to smash through wooden planks blocking the player's path. The room also contained two-handed turning wheels, gears, ramps, and other mechanisms that would allow the player to change the trajectory of the boulder. We had created a blockout and I had programmed a playable demo of the action, but for the sake of scope we had to let it go. While cool, the gameplay and interactables of this room were too unique from that of the rest of the game, so cutting it and focusing on perfecting the rest of the rooms and overall experience was absolutely for the best.
The final room (before the big goddess encounter pay-off) wraps up the gameplay by combining all of the elements found in the previous rooms alongside some water navigation. Players are immediately greeted by a massive, weighted scale with a large bucket tied to one end and a potentially cross-able bridge on the other end. While putting this room together, I moved around some pieces of the puzzle to give better clarity and line-of-sight to the player. Everyone loved the cool set pieces and flowing water, and I believed this room was a fantastic end to our game project.
Future Design:
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Overall I am super happy with gameplay and level design of Sumra, but that doesn't mean that there isn't room for improvement! Due to the scope of the project, I had to constrain the puzzles and challenges of the game, meaning that I didn't get to flex the diabolical puzzle muscles that I've become known for! Now, Sumra was never meant to be a difficult game, but given more time and space we could have further invested in some of the great mechanics that we set up. I would love to design a few more rooms that further explore the push-brazier as well as the player's need to decide how to use certain items and when/where to carry them.
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Speaking of carrying items, one of the current design shortcomings of Sumra is the often tedious nature of dropping your torch/totem, having to remember where you left them, and then walking over to pick them up again. I believe some of the redundancy of this action can be alleviated through further refinement of room layout, however I would also love to give the player the ability to throw one-handed items. Apart from being just plain fun, throwing items would cut down on the unnecessary movement and back-tracking of by letting the player chuck their items to places they plan to use them later. This also opens up many new room and puzzle design opportunities! We can also seamlessly add this feature to the existing control scheme by having the throw action be the same button as the drop action, but make it so that tapping the button drops the item, while holding it allows for it to be thrown. I believe this would be a great addition!