SHANKHA

OVERVIEW

Shankha is a third-person action-adventure game in which you play a god reincarnated as a tiger.

The player's objective is to roam and explore the island to recover three sacred objects and rebuild the island by helping your followers regain faith in you.

MY ROLE IN THE TEAM

Produce the level design of a small open-world
Design the main mechanics and the 3C
Write and integrate dialogues, quests and storyboards for cinematics

A year and half to make the game
Produce a minimum of 15 minutes of gameplay
Make a 3D game in team of 6
Only designer (game design, level design, narrative design) on the team

PROJECTS CONTRAINTS

MECHANICS

To carry out his missions, the tiger has two powers :

The roar, which lets you interact with objects and destroy components
- It can be upgraded by an adept to do new things
Clairvoyance, which serves as a map :
- To find your way around the island
- See the positions of open followers
- Quest status via follower icons
- Zone names

EVOLUTION OF THE ISLAND

The game's main mechanic is NPC-based, with the player using the tiger's abilities (6th sense and roar) to help NPCs rebuild the island. Each NPC has a unique appearance, and some are useful in your quest.

For example :

Once you've completed the builder's quest, he'll build a house for each follower you help, and the village will gradually rebuild itself.
Once the quest for the harbor keeper has been completed, the harbor will be back in operation, bringing new followers to the island.

LEVEL DESIGN

For the map, I was inspired by the topography of East Asian countries: mountainous landscapes, bamboo forests, lush rainforests ...
The map is represented as an island in the middle of a lake, to avoid map border problems and the use of invisible walls.

That's how I divided the island into 7 parts:

Goddess's Temple
Little Beach
North Forest
Large Beach
Bamboo Forest
Hot Springs
Shaman Plateau

This area serves as both :

A HUB, where collectables and followers will be displayed and their homes built around our temple
A tutorial for the player via the NPC, to learn our character's abilities

As long as the player hasn't completed the tutorial, he can't leave the temple area: we limit his movements to avoid leaving the player without knowledge of the mechanics.

We learn of the existence of other NPCs (which serve as side quests) and of our main quest by collecting the 1st item.

By the time we've finished the tutorial :

Access to a balcony is unlocked, giving us an elevated view of the 1st zone
The main door opens with a camera movement to show players the first NPC

It's at the "center" of the map: it's linked to all the other zones via shortcuts that the player can unlock.

Goddess's Temple

These areas :

Are present to coincide with the edges of an island
Allow to create flat areas where points of interest can be easily spotted by the player

To make point of interest more easily visible :

They are large enough to be seen from a distance
The area is free of vegetation and has very little relief

Little and large beach

Transition area to access beach and other zones.

It's an area with a lot of vegetation :

Force players to explore further to find collectables
Accentuates the wow effect between the forest / flat land difference

This area allows you to better reveal the surrounding areas by working on the vista and with the negative space which contrasts with the vegetation.

North forest

This area :

Entirely made of bamboo, allowing the player a glimpse of himself
Is a shortcut to the 1st area, unlocked by roaring

This is where the player can find the other two quest items :

One in a cave accessible with the enhanced roar
One given as a reward for a quest in the form of an agility test
- Chasing spirits trough the forest

Bamboo forest

The hot springs are and optional zone for the main quest : all you have to do is bring an NPC to this zone.

The Shaman plateau :

is the "final" area of the game, where you must collect the three items to complete the main quest and start the cinematic ending
it's here that we'll find the shaman after completing her 1st quest, and she'll be able to improve our roar

Louis DUPRAT