Hallowed Crucible is a First Person Round based Survival Shooter built in Unreal Engine 5. This was a 24-hour game jam challenge where I worked on the level design, lighting and game design with one other developer, Roman Campbell.
Roman reached out to me with the idea of creating a game in a day. We had worked together previously at Lunar Solstice Interactive, so we already were familiar enough with each other's skillsets that we could pick a day and jump right in. On the day of, we spent a few hours deciding what this game was going to be. We both had a lot of experience working in First Person so we agreed that would be the most sensible perspective to aim at. At the time I had been playing a lot of Elden Ring and Call of Duty in my spare time.
This sparked the question, how do we combine those two very different games? We started with the core gameplay loop. It needed to be fairly simple to make sure that we could achieve it in such a small amount of time. So the idea of fighting for survival, earning XP and upgrading sounded familiar. These concepts overlapped in the basic game loop of both Elden Ring and Call of Duty Zombies.
The premise of Hallowed Crucible was born!
We wanted to make sure to include key elements of both games. Stat upgrades from Elden Ring (soulslikes) and perks from COD Zombies seemed like two concepts that could be combined in a way that would fit what we were aiming for. So we decided that using a bonfire could offer 3 randomized perk options for the player to choose from that would update their stats for the rest of that run. Other important aspects to the player experience that we wanted to include from both genres were zombie hordes, melee combat, mystery both weapons and easter eggs to be solved.
With our basic gameloop in mind we moved into the environment. We wanted to keep the structure of the level design somewhat basic so that we could meet the time constraints we set for ourselves. With that in mind we discussed what made some of our favorite Zombies maps special. The maps that seemed to fit this idea the most were Nacht der Untoten, Verruckt and Kino Der Toten. Each of these maps had a very simplistic layout that would help me focus on employing sightlines and creating pathways for kiting to leverage with the gameplay. Soulslikes are known for their incredible level and environment design, it's what makes the traversal interesting, so I needed a way to marry that style into the design while keeping it balanced from a survival shooter perspective. This is where the dungeon aspect of the environment design came in. Additionally, it led to the idea of adding in a boss fight in order to complete the level. After all, soulslikes especially Elden Ring are known for their boss fights.
Once we had solidified the scope of the level we concepted some preliminary window locations which would act as the spawn locations for the zombies, the final boss and the weapon upgrade area (pack-a-punch). With those ideas sorted out it was time to jump into the engine and get to work!
Together, we browsed the Unreal Marketplace to find some assets that we could use to help us on our way with building the level. After finding some undead templar characters, crypt, dungeon and colosseum packs we felt ready to go.
I quickly prototyped some basic AI behavior logic and got it to Roman to give him a jumping off point and then got to work on my block-out. Quickly utilizing Unreal's box brushes I was able to layout the level and get the scale sorted out. Then I jumped into laying out the assets and replacing the box brushes with the actual assets. Additionally, I provided some bullet impact VFX that I had previously worked up (view them here).
Post Release Updates
With the major components of the game completed within the 24 hour time limit we gave ourselves it was time to take a well deserved break. We took a few days to relax and recharge then got back together to combine our work. Aside from some minor bugs with armor, damage systems and enemy AI we had a playable game. Roman took a few weeks to polish up the spawning and damage systems and get a few play testers to try it out. Once completed we posted the game to Steam as a playable demo.
Within the first few weeks we saw some great activity and feedback from players that we started to implement and still continue to do so.
We outlined a new elemental system where we added multiple elemental damage types including ice, fire, electricity and void. We've plotted out how these can be combined for a future update as well! Additionally, we plotted out a Hub world with a tutorial to help ease the player in.
Post Mortem
While the feedback on the level design has been largely positive, I'm always looking for ways to improve it. Going back, I'd like to add some extra enemy spawns and more variety to each of the spaces, with the limited timeframe I wanted to make sure I got the whole map done so I settled for some basic asset placement to make sure to break up some sightlines and give the player some paths to slow the zombies and get a little reprieve. While I'm happy with how that worked out together, adding some additional entries/exits to each of the rooms could create a more dynamic experience as the player progresses through the waves. To do this I'd like to add a courtyard (or graveyard) the the center of the map (above the crypt) this would at least connect both sides of the map making it a little easier to move from the East to West sides.
Challenging myself to participate in designing and developing a game in such a short amount of time while stressful was incredibly fun and rewarding. Seeing YouTubers uploading their own gameplay experiences and reviews was awesome and unexpected for such a small project, and is a big reason why we've stuck with it and continued to work on it.
