Study in Environmental Storytelling

Ideation

First, I decided to assess the tools I had at my disposal. Fortnite is set in a more modern setting with some sci-fi and magic elements, so path of least resistance is to set my level in the same time. Because I enjoyed it, I decided to do take the Breath of the Wild "Ruins come out of the earth due to magic technology" story beat, put that in a modern setting and tell that story beat with only environmental storytelling.

Making Satisfying Environmental Storytelling

Fun game design has tension and release. As such, environmental storytelling should make the player ask question, and release tension by answering them.

Good engagement alternates between intensity and resolution while continually ramping. By asking multiple connected questions over the span of a level, we can raise and release the tension these questions cause.

Pacing - 3 Act Structure

I decided the best approach to this was to use a three act structure, where each act introduces and answers a question.

What - What is happening?
- Ruins are coming out of the ground!
How - How are the ruins coming from the ground?
- There are purple glowing rocks in the ground.
  - Magic handwaves the scientific how, and focuses on the "something was unearthed" feeling.
Why - Why is this happening?
- Some organization unearthed something and accidently activated the rocks in the earth.

Now, I take these acts and turn them into storybeats/things. I originally thought, "We should break each Act into 3 subsections!". But, I want to keep things short and sweet, and this creates 9 story beats. So, I merged some of How with What and Why, which both felt natural and brings things down to 7 story beats.

Rough Pacing Outline:

What Start
- Lumpy terrain, ground uneven
What Middle
- Hint of building coming through ground
What End / How Start
- Entire hidden building bursts through below normal building
- An ominous glow from beneath
How Middle
- More cracks in the earth with lights in the ground
How End / Why Start
- Funky Fortnight Purple Rocks™ out of holes
- Fencing around rocks
Why Middle
- Military Checkpoint
Why End
- Lab with purple rocks bursting out of it

Doing this process revealed there were really 4 core "moments", The entire building busting through the ground, the rock reveal, the military checkpoint and the lab reveal. And, since so many elements are set-dressing that works as background elements, I just need to come up with 4 places. And to decide that, I started with their...

Spatial Archetypes

Using spacial archetypes can communicate mood and intent, so selecting 3 spatial archetypes for each area can support my environmental storytelling

Working backwards made the most sense to me.

To hide the lab and to make it feel like a final decent, I want to lean into the Pit archetype. (UEFN would change how I had to implement this, it slowly became a hollow mesa you descend into.) This also gives me a natural opportunity to use grand scale but keep it hidden and reveal it. I want to have a slow reveal as the player enters the pit.

Then, for the reveal of the purple rocks in the earth, I want to have the player move alongside a chasm. (The initial plan was that the chasm would open up into the pit, but this changes significantly in implementation.) In order for that to stand out, setting the chasm inside a valley or plains will help the giant hole stand out. The subterranean stuff gives an excuse to have it be a valley, as there's just a bunch of lumps in the ground.

Finally, to hide that from the player at the start, I need to put the player lower in the ground in a way that's different than a pit. So I went with the Hollow Archetype. This implies a more open space than I like, but I can block the other path.

With this all picked out, I wrote up my final level plan, and got in engine!

Implementation

So, I started from the beginning and moved forwards so I could personally test the flow.

The Hollow - Act 1

Many hollows have terrain jutting upwards within, and featuring just the one creates a donut shape. By closing off one half of the donut, I can convert this into a linear space while still keeping things feeling organic. I decided that the narrative hook - something's going on underground - serves as an organic reason for this to happen. I also wanted the player to look at this, then move on, so I place a large hill on the path forwards and make a gentle trench with a trail towards the ruins.

First Ruined Home

The path to this place is trenched in the ground to help limit sightlines and direct the player to this ruined house.

Second Ruined Home

The top of the house is visible from on top of the hill. But as the player approaches...

it's revealed that it's also destroyed, and some sort of structure came up from underneath.

Leaving the Hallow

Pillars come up from underground, and a much larger ruins has rubble and cars on top, as a final clarification before moving onto "How?"

The Rift - Act 2

Here, there is a massive rift in the ground. I want the player to have a growing sense of intrigue as they go along. So, we go from chainlink fence (so you can see through) to shorter car barriers, to finally allowing the player to just drive or walk in. But since this isn't the way forwards, it's mostly barren. Playtesting gave a variety of user behaviors, from ditching the truck to go look to ramming it into the barrier to get a closer look. This proves I successfully built intrigue.

This and the next section taught me about a flaw in my level process that I have since fixed. UEFN doesn't like making pits too deep, which I learned while trying to make the pit. But because I rendered the previous areas in such high fidelity and stuck pretty close to Fortnite's base level height, I couldn't go and fix this. In the future, I will make sure to do a low fidelity version of the whole map before progressing to avoid this. It's a pretty beginner mistake to make.

Foreshadowing Fissure

Crevice in the earth that foreshadows the larger crevice. Pillar both connects both conceptually and serves to flag it down for the player.

Crevice Proper

Big luminous glow to alert the player. The chainlink fence somewhat obfuscates the view, creating tension. And as they decend down the hill...

more of the site is visible. A gradual presentation like this helps present a sense of scale.

People Foreshadowing

Who put up the stuff and so quickly? Putting in military and men in suits seemed like enough foreshadowing.

The Pit Lab - Act 3

I wanted to do a progressive reveal, where as you slowly enter the pit, more becomes visible to you. So, you start by revealing a research station where the cubes are being processed by a machine. The original version had a giant sci-fi building next, but it wasn't obviously connected enough, so I swapped it for a Golden Cube. Finally, a giant glowing statue reveals that the ancient civilization is somehow connected to the purple cubes, directly!

Entrance Ramp

This is the last moment before the grand reveal. So, I include one last piece of foreshadowing, then hold on the tension.

Gradual Reveal

As the player drives across the entrance of the canyon, I want the reveal to increase in intensity. So, we go from mundane, to strange but familiar, to a final grand reveal.

From the bottom

These places also look interesting when the player finally reaches the bottom. This is more setdressing and implying that these strange things were unearthed.

Iteration

Designing Around Occam's Razor

The main obstacle with such a fantastical premise was fighting Occam's Razor. How do you get players to think of a fantastical cause instead of much more benign ones?

I originally gave myself the challenge of "the player should figure out that stuff is coming up from the ground without being shown it happening" but this was significantly harder than anticipated.

Alternative Explanations in Act 1 and Solutions:

Storm - There was too much tree and natural rubble, all explainable by a strong wind.
- Solution - Implemented second destroyed house with ruins up from underneath it.
I just did a very bad job of rendering foundations - The second house was the same size and angle as the ruins beneath it.
- Solution - Disable the auto snap, rotate and tilt the house so it's at a different angle, and make the ruins larger than the house.
Earthquake - Too much organic rubble, easily could be debris from the surrounding cliff face.
- Solution - Replace some rubble with ruins assets and call it a day.
Volcanic Activity - The organic rock assets I used looked volcanic???
- Honestly, close enough. The did later connect this to the purple cubes and that's close enough. The exact mechanism behind why the purple cubes are pushing stuff up isn't important and this is very close. Plus volcanos take stuff from underground and push them up. But I still
- Solution - Just show it happening. Stick some pillars around a chokepoint on the way out and make them come out when a trigger activates.
Earthquake (again) - They looked away when the pillars were appearing and assumed they fell down...
- How much is this my problem?
- Solution - Repeat the effect multiple times. Redundancy is all I can really do from here.

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