Aldar: The Well of Fate
Overview
Aldar is a 3D puzzle adventure game where an avian humanoid must craft potions to save a deteriorating Nordic-inspired land.
Final Shots
In Progress Shots
Narrative Design
The world of Aldar is meant to be littered with environmental narrative for those that are keen to explore and discover the secrets of the world.
During the course of production, I wrote initial versions of dialogue, journal pages, and a narrative overview. These helped to bring a narrative element into the game that brought it to life and helped to guide the player through the world.
World Design
Aldar is a small, open-world game that requires the player to craft and use potions to navigate the environment.
I spent a majority of pre-production designing two different levels for Aldar and worked closely with the art team to nail down the visual feel of the world. Levels were initially sketched out in meetings with artists present for input on the placement of objects and flow of the level. These sketches were then translated into the Unreal Engine, first using primitives and later with the terrain editor tool.
Team | Viridian
Seth Glaser - Producer, Design Lead
Grace McClintock - Producer, Narrative Designer
Yaroslava Cherkashina - Director, Animator
Garrett Conti - Technical Lead
Aaron Johnson - AI, Gameplay Programmer
Hazel Hamilton - VFX Programmer
Hunter Elofson - Graphics Programmer
Cameron Bess - Systems Designer
Austin Kennedy - UI Designer, UI Programmer
Chay Davis - Systems Designer
Ronald Van - Level Designer
Benjamin Adman - Art Lead, Technical Artist
Nicole Davis - Environment Artist
Nunki Ingulsrud - Creature Artist
Wayde Scott - Character Artist
Alex Zerr - Rigger, Technical Artist
Eric Bergman - Sound Lead
Details
Platform: PC
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Ship Date: April 2019
Production Duration: Sept 2018 - April 2019
Team Role
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Prototyped levels with Unreal terrain tools to communicate world design of two realms for use in game.
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Worked with art team to establish design, feel, and look of the world.
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Mapped out eight encounters on paper and in Adobe Photoshop to add challenge and narrative to game.
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Worked with other designers and artists to create a matrix of potions, their effects, and the ingredients found within them.
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Constructed a narrative relevant to the world to inform future design decisions and focus art in a direction.
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Lead a team of 16 people through the production phase of an academic project.