CRYPT RAID
- Skirmish at the Altar -

NARRATIVE CONCEPT

The skirmish in CRYPT RAID takes place within the deepest and most intimate, darkest halls of the crypts.
In here, a lich priestess has woken up from her slumber and has been conducting her morbid practices unseen and undisturbed, untill now.
The band of raiders has descended deep within the crypt to hunt down the lich priestess and put an end to the birth of undead monstrosities.

DESIGN CONCEPT

The whole environment structuring has been designed and assembled to frame and highlight the centre of the scene, which takes place at the end of the crypts hall, before the bloody altar and home of the lich priestess.

The tiles of the battle grid have been textured using the same texture of the ground for better seamlesness with the environment, to help in making a necessary game element that would otherwise break the game immersion turn instead into a blended and non intrusive element of the environment visuals without loosing its gameplay importance.
This decision was made under the light of the desire to focus on the atmosphere of the experience and not just gameplay.

Both left and right of the map have been constructed to give the illusion of complexity and continuity, attempting to hint at all that
“is there or could be there but cannot be seen”.
The bottom of the map has been littered with bones and skeletons and provisioned with torch lights, very much like the top of the map, in the attempt to deliver the impression of the narrowness of the altar hall, and reinforcing the directional sense of the events within the game.

The left end of the environment showcases the sacrifical altar of the lich priestess and works as an attention catcher for the player meant to aid the perception that the altar is the focus and end of the crypt hall.
On the right end there are columns that sustain several arcs. The structure together is meant to represent the point of arrival of the raiding band of adventurers.
The position of the arcs of arrival in relation to the altar, and the position of the raiding band in relation to the undead forces, aim to give a sense of direction for both opposing forces, in which the clashing point is the point in between.

Many details have been condensed within the visual frame and scoped size of the battleground to deliver narrative to the player while also keeping the focus on the event and the clash of forces, in which the detailed and richer environment around the battleground aim to highlight by contrast the emptiness at the center, creating a stage.

On the right side of the top of the envrionement, there is a mysterious and mystical portal of unknown nature.
This detail has been added with the aim to create a sense of narrative mystery and add a further layer of atmosphere to the experience, and color variety to the environment, very much like a colorful jewel to adorn a well matched outfit.

All 3D assets have been purchased as assets packages from the Unreal Marketplace, alongside several textures, particle effects, sound effects and soundtrack
Several sound effects have been borrowed from Freesound.org