The Miller

Assignment: Create a horror game based on Twent’s folklore for a client.

Role: Gameplay, cutscene, and sound designer

Engine/Tools Used: Unity, Adobe XD, Git, FMOD Studio

Team Size: 7

Development Time: 9 weeks

The Miller is a horror game set in the Northern Mill of Twickel. As its new owner, it’s your job to investigate the abandoned mill and uncover its secret. Just make sure you make it out of there alive…

For this project of 0 weeks I was responsible for the game’s feel, sound design, cutscenes and overall game mechanics. Because we had more than double the time to spend on this project I decided to take this chance to learn FMOD, as I know it’s an incredibly useful tool we hadn’t yet been taught in school. Additionally, this was a good way to test how a longer project would differ from a shorter one.

Design goals

Create a game that is not just fun, but also experienced as scary.
Learn how to use FMOD in Unity and learn how FL Studio can be used to make music.
Explore the differences between a 3 week project and an 9 week project.
Learn how to make functional and engaging cutscenes through Unity’s timelines.
Work with a client, keeping his wishes in mind and using them to improve our game.

Personal contributions

Created personas and design documents that shaped the production of the game.
Recorded, composed, and implemented sound and music using FMOD and FL Studio.
Conducted extensive user tests reporting and implementing their feedback.
Regularly maintained contact with our client, and recorded his feedback.
Implemented cutscenes and animations using Unity’s Timeline feature.
Planning of project and daily standups.

Process

After the usual concepting and prototyping we got to work writing out the game’s story and creating a blockout. We couldn’t imagine a way this game would work as a paper prototype, so we spent more time fleshing out the elements we could prototype, meaning we had more time to manage the gameplay if it became a problem later.
We ended up with a story we were happy enough with that we could go all in on gameplay, and so we each went to work on our own separate parts.

After testing and iterating on the sounds, I picked up the task of animating cutscenes. Because it was a horror game the animations for the miller didn’t have to look perfect, as the uncanny valley effect did the bulk of the work making it look scary.
With the main features done, we went over the game once again to see what sounds and animations were still missing and which still needed tweaking.
We conducted some final user playtests and implemented some client feedback and then ended the project well on time for us to perfect our final presentation.

For me, this meant audio. In past projects I was focused on being a lead designer, fleshing out mechanics and testing a lot of gameplay, so I was interesting in switching it up and picking up a new skill like FMOD.

After playing around with integrating FMOD into Unity and Git, and experimenting with FMOD’s features, I started to focus on what sounds would improve the game’s experience. I added reverb and ambience depending on what space you’re in, and made the sound change dynamically depending on what ground you’re standing on, improving the immersion of the game.
Music was easy to make, I took inspiration from Outlast to add to the eery atmosphere of the mill. Using string instruments to make dissonant sounds was intuitive to do using FL Studio.
The voice acting proved the hardest part, as none of us were experts in that area so it always sounded kind of studenty, which it was of course.

Outcome

This is easily the biggest project I’ve ever worked on. Of course there are things that could have used more attention and work, but we definitely felt as if our project was “complete” by the end.

Learning FMOD didn’t prove as challenging as people made it out to be, I feel confident that I’ve picked up a new skill which I will definitely use in future projects.

I’ve also learned a lot about working on longer projects. Healthier work-weeks and structural planning are even more important than usual, and I’ve improved on my planning a lot as the project went on.

The feedback we got most by the end was that the miller’s voice was too incoherent, which is definitely true, but I’m proud to say that was the worst of it.

The game is available for free on itch, I definitely recommend checking it out!