LOA Development Process

DEVELOPMENT PROCESS DEEP-DIVE: THE LIBRARY OF ANOMALIES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

(Clickable Links Coming Soon)

Early Project Planning
Defining A Creative Vision
Story Building
World/Level Building
Character Building
Designing Systems
Input From Play Testers
Final Launch

A QUICK NOTE

This is a very extensive read and will take some time. Most development processes are fair in length but only because most people work on one aspect of a game, but because I wear nearly all the hats while making this game so there is ALOT to share. I love sharing behind the scenes details (the more obscure the better! ) I also felt it important to not only explain WHAT I'm doing but WHY I'm doing what I'm doing. It's also being written in real time as the game in being made so there may be some "back-and-forth" of ditching and resurrecting ideas. I hope you enjoy reading it! If you're interesting in reaching out, there is a "Contact Me" page in the menu navigation!

EARLY PROJECT PLANNING (Late 2023)

LOA started as a mini project not too different than its final version. The original idea for the game was that you could play a bunch of short horror experiences similar in pacing to Slender: The Eight Pages and other early 2010’s horror games, but really this was just an excuse to practice programming in Unity with little thought being put into it. No NPCs, no dialog, no story, just short and (honestly) shallow experiences/games. These games would be accessible by grabbing a book off a shelf and going over to the couch where the in-game character would read the book, sleep on the couch, and dream about what they read. Here Is a list of book ideas (BELOW) from early development.

GAME FLOW

WORK FLOW

As an indie game developer, time is inconsistent. The first month of development has been spent making this portfolio and making the gameplay systems, such as player and camera movement.

The goal is to spend 2 hours a day building out the game and up to an additional 2 hours adding to this portfolio. The night before the work day, I write down in my google sheet (can read below) what I need to get done the next day. In the beginning it was hard because I would load too much to do for the next day and It would take more than 2 hours (sometimes like 4 - 5 hours). While it's not a big deal, I worry that future me may get burnt-out if I don't limit myself (this has been a problem in the past with other one-man-band games I've attempted to make).

The success of this game TO ME is more about making sure it gets released. It's all too easy for an indie dev to never have real repercussions for not delivering on what they hoped/promised to, this portfolio dev log is a good way to hold myself accountable since there is no one here to.

DEFINING A CREATIVE VISION

I used these games as inspiration for the creative vision used in LOA.

FONT

I decided on a font early on. I chose GEORGIA, because It's a font used in books and there are plenty of books in LOA.

There is no difficulty setting. This game is more about atmosphere and unsettling horror more than a skill-based horror game.

DIFFICULTY

SAMPLE FONT: GEORGIA

While prototyping the game, I thought it would be interesting to replace the run with a script that instead just speeds time up. This strange mechanic intertwines with the idea of the library being in a place outside of time.

UNIQUE GAME DESIGNS

MUSIC

Nobody on YouTube makes great playlists

The song you hear is called "Space 9" by Unworn

STORY BUILDING

I did my fair share of daydreaming to come up with an interesting story. I thought about making the entire library full of books for the player to choose from, almost like a virtual candy shop. I ditched that idea, I was worried the player might get lost and not understand there is a story (because the story would be spread too thin over too many books or burred too deep in too few books.) I opted for a spoon-feeding approach, where once the player found the items they needed then the next book would show up. This also lets me dictate the speed at which story is given to the player...on the contrary taking any control away from the player is risky, but it's a risk I'm willing to take (otherwise I'd have to break a story into pieces that can't be properly understood unless you have ALL the pieces)

(Image Above) A detailed profile of the main character. He is the only main character. More Detail on Dr. Laird down in the Character Building Section

INSPIRATION

Take a look at this post from the mid 2010's that inspired the flood of backroom games:

(600 million square miles?? Hahahaha that part always tickles me)

As more backroom games came out, many would take the idea of no-clipping out of reality and not expand on it. I decided the story will include the premise of no-clipping through the ground but try and add some sci-fi technology in the mix in attempt to ground in more reality (sort of).

Introducing Dr. Laird’s life-long work! The Fundamental Spin Aligner (FSA), it aligns the spin of all the fundamental molecules of any given object inside the field it produces! Dr. Laird has sent in cameras, microphones, cups, and more but all information ceases to exist once objects go through the floor. Dr. Laird is being told explicitly to shut down all operations and is now feeling his life’s work being thrown away. In one final attempt to glimpse into the unknown after hours, Dr. Laird steps into his machine for the first time. He feels his body warm up quickly. All the molecules in his body align perfectly straight, invisible to the naked eye but molecularly perfect. The alignment causes the floor beneath to behave less like a solid surface and more like quicksand. He looks down as his feet seemingly melt into the earth.

META KNOWLEDGE

Welcome to the place between life and death, a transitioning point…in space and time. The Abyss. Time ceased to exist. Space has no limits. The creator made this place. The creator decides what to do with you after you die. The creator has no physical form. The creator exists as a superposition and super intelligence. The creator is God. The creator shows you your life in the form of books, you may spend as long as you like remembering and reliving memories from your past life. But…you…you’re not…dead. You’re not supposed to be here. This place is not heaven. This place is not hell. There’s a little bit of both here though.

You wake up on the couch in the library. The creator will speak to you, not in words but in spirit. He will explain paragraphs using sentences, books using symbols, possible using the impossible. In no more time than it takes 30 billion neurons to fire in one’s head, all of the creator’s work past, present, and future becomes crystal clear…almost as if…you had been watching it more millions of years. Time doesn’t exist here, if you wish to spend eternity reveling in your past life, you may. However, another life exists after you are done remembering and are ready to leave your old life for good. When a person is ready they will be given a book called The Book Of Life, it’s all the books in one. It’s impossibly thin. You will then be brought to The Garden, it’s a beautiful garden with one tree and a hole in it. The hole on the tree glows with the flames of eternal consciousness. You look at the flame and you see yourself and everything you’ve experienced. You must throw the book of life into the flame of the tree to either start a new life OR exists in The Abyss as a “Wanderer” free of long-term consciousness and doomed to never return to reality. Because consciousness is a limited resource in The Abyss, those who choose to stay must forfeit “Full Consciousness” and instead receive “Partial Consciousness”. Once the flame consumes the book of life you are birthed in the real world or return to the Garden where the creator will determine your destiny…it’s in his hands now.

[concept drawing of machine and what it looks like to activate it]

“They go down…so they must be affected by gravity…puzzling” ~ Dr. Laird

WORLD/LEVEL BUILDING

THE LIBRARY

I was inspired by the backrooms creepy pasta and other liminal spaces. I took to r/liminalspaces for inspiration as well as Google of course.

I found this image (UPPER LEFT) the most fitting. I make note of the green/yellowish lighting, the dark wood accents on the bookshelves, how it’s clearly made for a child with low tables and chairs. The coloring would be everything here. It’s pretty obvious from looking at the image that the piss poor quality of the early 2000s + the lack of people adds to the liminal/creepiness.

Early 3D Model

Book 3D Model

BETA Testing Library, U.I., SFX, and Volumes. The radio sounds funny because the Doppler Effect is turned all the way up. The breathing was done by me and the oxygen, clock, buzzing lights, and footsteps were all from YouTube sound library.

Early Texturing (1/2)

Early Texturing (2/2)

Eventually, I wanted to bake the lighting but I mapped the UVs wrong and the resolution was incorrect. So I went back into blender and deleted faces that would never be seen by the player and looked into doing it all correctly (this took like a week)

While recreating the carpet texture, I experimented with making the floor look "trippy". I liked how it looked in blender so I decided to keep it!

THE LOADING SCREEN

The Loading Screens are fake. Sorry to break it to you, but it was too jarring going from one scene to another. The scene plays this dial-up SFX and rotates this 3D mask with a pink dither shader placed on it.

Inspector View. We must turn off the cursor whenever we're on the loading screen and in gameplay

Loading Screen C# Script. At the start of the load screen, RNG makes a choice between the load screen taking 2, 4, or 6 seconds to load anything past that is your own system's fault.

THE LAB

Early 3D Modeling

Prototype of Larri-98i UI background

THE COMPUTER (A.K.A. Larri-98i)

Early 3D Model (Unoptimized w/ 11,589 Vertices...YIKES!!! + it's ugly)

GIF of Larri-98i prototype

Basic Prototype gameplay Larri-98i

THE FARM (BOOK 1)

Early Testing of Flashlight mechanics, sound design, and local volumes.

In the beta version, The Farm was originally called The Bell because Lamp Head had a bell ringing SFX, but because I decided that ringing a bell would be how you go back to the library. Also each book level would have excerpt from each book. You can see it as the player enters the level on the Level Card.

CHARACTER BUILDING

Dr. Laird (you)

INSPIRATION

LAMP HEAD

I wanted a lumbering giant for the first level "The Farm", something creepy but not too punishing for the player. I took inspiration from the siren head creepy pasta, the iron giant, and the eye of Sauron from the LOTR. (SEE BELOW)

Bringing Lamp Head To Life With Animations

Walking Animation

Idle Animation

Chase Animation

ORIGINAL INSPIRATION

DEVIATIONS

When I went to bake in the vertex-groups to the mesh, I realized that I should've put bones in all the branch/bones sticking out. I ended up cutting them off and revisiting the idea originally stated in my Notes from Nov 2023 where there would be a giant humanoid with a lamp head and thus "Lamp Head" was born!

PLANNING

After talking with some of my friends, I decided that 2b. will be what i aim for with maybe #3 being in the mix.

Lamp Head is slow but if he sees you he will start moving fast towards you unless you're out of his trigger zone. If you stand still (Velocity < 1) while he walks by then he will not see you; I don't want the player trying to hide but failing to do so.

THE AUTHOR/JESTER

Solid

I knew I wanted The Author/Jester to have a creepy mask so I modeled this mask and I got lucky and made something creepy first try! The mask has a chimpanzee look to it and it's very unsettling.

Material

Rendered (Cycles)

Mood board for The Author

THE MASK