Genre - 3rd Person Horror
Engine - Unreal Engine 5
Team Size - 10
Development Time - 10 Weeks
Puzzle Documentation
Contributions
Overview
As the project’s Puzzle Designer, I designed three unique puzzles that wove seamlessly into the haunted mansion’s story-line. Each puzzle was crafted to balance challenge with intuitiveness, maintaining an immersive experience that kept players engaged and aligned with the game’s dark atmosphere. To achieve this, I collaborated closely with the design, programming, and art teams, working under the Lead Designer to ensure each puzzle reinforced the game’s themes.
My primary contributions:
Designed three narrative-driven puzzles to enhance storytelling and game play.
Fully development a singular puzzle to a polished standard, alongside a audio designer and musician.
Worked closely with the art team to ensure puzzle elements matched the game’s horror aesthetic.
Prototyped two different AI enemies that interact with the main characters lantern.
Working with artists allowed me to integrate environmental elements that enriched the horror experience and reinforced the narrative of Briar. It was essential to maintain story continuity across puzzles for a cohesive player experience, and I drew on iterative design and feedback to refine game play. Through this project, I strengthened my skills in collaborative problem-solving, narrative integration, and player-centered design, which I look forward to applying in future projects.
Briar is a 3rd-person horror puzzle game developed by a team of 10 over 10 weeks for the Beta Arcade module. Set in a haunted mansion cursed by the spirits of former tenants, the game challenges players to uncover secrets and escape supernatural dangers by solving a series of narrative-driven puzzles.
Narrative
In Briar, players explore a haunted mansion shrouded in mystery and cursed history. At the center of this tragic tale is the Lord of the Mansion, a powerful figure whose spirit is trapped within an ominous painting. This cursed portrait binds him to the mansion, and his vengeful presence haunts its halls. The player’s journey is driven by the need to uncover the secrets that led to his confinement and to ultimately escape—the grip of his tormented soul.
The protagonist begins their journey in the mansion, motivated by a desire to uncover its secrets. The first challenge involves solving a puzzle to collect pieces of an empty painting frame scattered throughout the mansion. As players piece together the frame and return it to their starting room, they gradually unveil the essence of the Lord of the Mansion. Upon completing the frame, the painting springs to life, revealing the trapped Lord and marking the beginning of a deeper exploration into the mansion’s cursed history.
Throughout the mansion, players will encounter various paintings of the Lord that respond to their actions. These artworks communicate with the player through brief voice lines, reacting to their interactions with puzzles, enemies, and the surrounding environment. This dynamic dialogue enriches the narrative experience, providing clues and insights into the mansion's haunting history as players navigate its eerie halls.
Puzzles
Tasked with developing three unique puzzles to drive the narrative, I quickly recognized that designing and implementing all three would limit my ability to focus on design quality. In the second team meeting, I delegated the implementation of two puzzles to the programming team, allowing me to concentrate on the design and narrative aspects. This decision ensured I could develop the puzzle structure and narrative continuity while the programmers managed the technical execution.
Puzzle 1 - Upper Floor Bedrooms
Players start in a dimly lit room with an empty painting frame missing its pieces. The goal is to explore the mansion, find each piece of the frame, and bring it back to its original place.
This puzzle encourages exploration and familiarizes players with the layout of the mansion.
Completing the frame causes the painting to “spring to life,” revealing the Lord of the Mansion. This introduction to the Lord helps set up the overarching mystery: he is a trapped spirit, communicating through paintings.
If the players explore the rooms where they find the painting pieces, they will come across hand written notes that give some context to why the Lord is stuck within the painting.
Puzzle 2 - Library
As players delve deeper into the mansion, they encounter a grand library overflowing with books. Here, they must complete a series of "swap and select" puzzles to unlock a hidden passageway that holds a key essential for their escape.
This puzzle introduces a slower-paced challenge, requiring players to carefully observe their surroundings, particularly the roaming and patrolling enemies in the area. By doing so, players learn to recognize and predict the behaviors of the two different enemy types.
Each success or failure in the puzzle triggers unique voice lines from the Lord, offering glimpses into his past interests and hobbies. These insights build a richer understanding of the Lord’s character, making the discovery of the hidden key all the more rewarding.
Puzzle 3 - Ballroom
The final challenge for players is a complex arrangement of large music boxes, each of which can be rotated to specific positions that correspond to a musical note displayed on a nearby pedestal.
This puzzle was particularly meaningful to me, as I both designed and developed it, overseeing every stage from concept to prototyping.
On each music box, players will find either a single mannequin or a pair, which visually represent the type of musical note: a quaver for single mannequins and a semi-quaver for pairs. By rotating the pedestals and selecting notes in the correct order, players hear individual notes played, building up to a full melody when all notes are correctly aligned.
There are three sets of music boxes, each containing eight notes that, once solved, contribute to a final harmonious melody that completes the challenge. My portfolio includes insights into the design process and showcases the different prototyping stages that led to the final version of this puzzle.
