FCH - TV Room
Flesh-Coloured Horror
Flesh-Coloured Horror is a first-person horror game made in Unreal centered on a silent protagonist piecing together a hospital’s sordid past.
Flesh-Coloured Horror is a student project from VFS made in Unreal. The main thrust was to be introduced to and learn visual scripting using Blueprint. We were supplied with and constrained to a premade 2D layout and given the theme of “spooky hospital”.
FCH was my first foray into scripting and environmental storytelling in game design. Additionally, it was my first experience with Unreal’s lighting system. Ultimately, this proved to be a big learning experience and a foundation upon which I could grow the rest of my skills.
While this was largely a project of assemblage, I did make the majority of the blueprints exhibited in these videos. This includes the haunted TV, burning dormitory, and final confrontation sequences as well as the elevator with functioning doors.
FCH - Full Playthrough
Below you can find some examples of the work I did for this project:
The Basics
As mentioned above, this assignment came with stringent parameters. While this was helpful in some ways, it felt quite restricting in others. However, the challenge of taking a generic shape and turning it into something more interesting was a lot of fun.
One thing I’ll point out is this: the lighting sucks. A combination of overlapping influence radii and a lack of proper volumetric fog (among other things) made for an overly dark experience. This is one of the first lessons I learned while working on FCH.
The layout and parameters we were given for this project.
The tapes had a glow to them so they’d stand out in the darkness. The red also ties to the killer, as seen in the final sequence of the level.
Narrative and Objective
While not required for this assignment, I wanted to have some sort of narrative string tying the level together. To this end I opted for a classic trope: the mysterious tape recording of vaguely ominous words. The idea was that the tapes gave insight into the mind of whoever it was that rampaged through the hospital.
The level begins in the waiting room with a busted cell and a body smashed into the corner. Each time the player finds a tape, it’s accompanied by the spirits of those the murderer killed.
Having the tapes gave the player a concrete goal which was reflected in the HUD. This turned the level from essentially a haunted house to something a little more interactive.
Making Something New
The other big thing I learned doing this project was the manipulation of old assets in Unreal to create new ones. For example, we were supplied with art assets like the skeletal meshes of several characters. However, a bunch of T-poses doesn’t work quite right for gameplay. To that end, I became familiar with Unreal’s skeletal mesh editing, turning those into static meshes, and correctly applying collision to them.
It’s a small thing, but it was imperative to me to set the tone. Nothing exists in a vacuum and having a body cradling the key is infinitely more engaging than simply having it laying around.
Of course, the other side of that is feedback. Even having the key visibly move to the character and update the HUD makes all the difference.
The final sequence made solely in Blueprint.
Culmination of the Game
By the end of the level, the player has collected all the spooky audio tapes and found themselves in front of an ominous red door. As mentioned before, keeping cohesive colour between player objectives helped guide the player in the right direction and helped linked the horror together.
The real trick of the final sequence, however, was linking the killer’s model to an animation set. It didn’t come with any of it’s own, so I tied it to the zombie animations seen elsewhere. That, and some editing of sound files, is how I achieved the effect seen on the left.