SAI NARAYAN NATARAJANBIO: I’m a final year computer science engi-neering student of SRM University, India. I’ve loved video games and everything about them since living recollection and consider it my life purpose to make a Dungeons & Dragons MMORPG a reality someday. (Neverwinter doesn’t count)

My interests in game design lie primarily in the spheres of concept creation and level design. I love nothing more than the process of making a story and a world around it to match.

My goal is to create compelling and immersive games that reach out to the player and inspire emotions, provoke thoughts and ultimately feel like deep experiences. Video games have the capability to be so much more complex as a form of entertain-ment media, and I want to make games that reach their fullest potential.

My career objective is to become a game producer, level designer and concept creator. What follows are a few examples of my work towards these goals in the past few years.

CONTACT:Mobile : +919952944690Email : Nightmask3@gmail.com

LEVEL DESIGN:

1) Self-instruction and online tutorials:

Since Grade 11(2009), I have familiarized myself with the technical terms and concepts that are used in the video game industry. Using tutorials from Youtube as well as online instruction websites like 3dVillage and 3DBuzz, I’ve learnt how to use level editing software like Unreal Development Kit(UDK), and Unity.

Driven only by my self – interest, I gained basic skills and knowledge in these level editors, and created a number of independent levels, to keep in practice and to improve my skills.

I am primarily familiar in the UDK and am skilled in implementing lighting, scripted events, cutscenes and Matinees, asset integration and placement, character integration and animation, and usage of the Unreal Material Editor.

A few screenshots are shown below:

Game Design & Development:

I recently traveled to The Netherlands for a semester of study in HAN University from January to June 2014. During this time, I enrolled in a Game Development and Design program which consist-ed of three courses, Game Play, Game Art and the Game Project.

GAME PLAY taught me the fundamentals of game design and showed us the process behind the creation of a video game concept by asking the students to create their own video game concept, from the initial High Concept to the final more technical stage where the mechanics and gameplay elements are decided.

GAME ART instructed me in the basics of using 3D Studio Max. We were also given an introduction to Character Design and Storytelling. Students were expected to create their own characters, from personalities to the final character sheet, and to create a story in which these charac-ters were used. Sound Design was also a part of it, wherein we had to create a soundtrack that suited the character and story, using Cubase.

THE GAME PROJECT was undertaken in the last two months of the course, and it ties together with assignments of the Game Play course, in that the students can pitch their High Concepts to the class as a whole. The two concepts with the most appeal are chosen to be made into actual video games, by teams of students working on them.

My contribution to the project was as concept owner, providing the story, theme, dialogue and con-cept for the game, and acting as head of creative direction. I had a secondary role as a level designer, wherein I was responsible for asset and character integration into UDK, asset placement, character animation, sound integration, lighting, cutscenes as well as implementation of scripted events and boss fights. I was also responsible for designing 2 out of 3 levels in the game from start to finish, and contributing to the completion and fine - tuning of the 1st level.

The intro movie to the game is viewable here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgCxna_Sbvs&list=UUB6xVyQVulkt-XOkhQkdN-JQ&channel=Nightmask3 (plot and dialogue created by me, but made by Sven Lobnig and Michael Kauffman)

and the game itself can be downloaded here:https://www.dropbox.com/s/8yhtehtbels00dj/udkinstall-nightmare.exe?dl=0

What follows are examples of my work on this project.

My concept, a psychological horror-platformer game called, “The Nightmare”

met with much interest, and I received the go – ahead to assemble a team and work on it. I led a team of 19 students of various roles such as level designers, artists, modelers, sound engineers and programmers for a period of two months (May - June), within which we had to reach the ‘alpha’ stage (i.e. – playable with minor bugs).

(Concept art designed by Sven Lobnig, concept artist and animator, with input from me.)

Concept Creation & Creative Writing:

The following writing sample is the core concept behind ‘The Nightmare’:

“This game is intended to be a first person platformer and RPG with overtones of survival horror.It will involve no direct combat. All enemies have to either be avoided or fled from. The enemies will come at infrequent intervals, and most of the game time will be spent traversing platforms and exploring the world.

The Player Character (PC) is traversing a 3D landscape with a semi – open gameworld style with ‘dungeons’ to explore, the dungeons being the areas through which the main storyline progresses andoptional sidequests which can lead to rewards for the PC in various forms, which encourages exploration of a game world filled with bizarre, frightening and nonsensical geometry, with occasional soothing interludes in areas of refuge.

The game is designed around the experience that comes with being robbed of power and understanding entirely when thrust into a situation beyond rational conception, the fear thatwould come with it, and the journey to survive and attempts to make sense of a world that has no laws binding it to reality.”

(A sketch for the game world’s outdoor environment)

The second writing sample is the description for the structure and aesthetic of the game world:

“For the structure of the game world there are two categories: 1) The Semi – Sandbox Open World:

The sandbox space will be filled with platforming challenges along the way in the form of timing related puzzles, traps that must be carefully avoided, shifting platforms and hostile NPCs both in the form of rooted obstacles that cannot shift their position and mobile enemies that roam the gameworld searching for the PC. The game world itself would be very chaotic and not conforming to the normal laws of physics. Pockets of land floating around to provide moving platformer challenges in traversal, disappearing and reappearing patches of land that need to be timed when attempting to be crossed, confusing and bizarre geometry that leads the player in circles and puzzles of a logical or reasoning nature that need to be solved to bypass obstacles in the players path.

2) The Dungeons: The Dungeons will be for the most part, adjoining rooms that connect to each other, that need to be traversed in a non-linear fashion to complete the dungeon in its entirety. The rooms are scattered with platforming challenges, puzzles and patrolling enemies, all of which are to provide obstacles to the players’ progress. The ultimate objective of every dungeon is to collect an item that the boss and minions are protecting, which is impossible without solving the multiple puzzles that are spread in separate parts of the dungeon. The doors that connect each room can be locked in some cases, creating a need for the player to backtrack and find the key.”

(Some examples of obstacles and platforming challenges in a dungeon)

The third and final writing sample is the Theme Vision I had in mind for ‘The Nightmare’:

“The game world is set within a dreamlike state. I think this provides a very versatile setting for a video game because virtually anything is possible in a dream like experience.

Think of Inception and how reality is completely defined by the viewer’s perception within the dreamworld. With an idea like this in mind, it would allow for quite a degree of suspension of belief within the players. Hence keeping them firmly in the magic circle. It wouldn’t require much of a stretch to introduce impossible landscapes, paradoxical puzzles and situations that seem completely bizarre and frightening.

This is the mood that I want to capture because the PC is stuck in a nightmare that will go on to no end until the final objective is completed. To that end the art style of the game must also be vague, and not clearly defined.

The feel I’m searching for would have more in common with the foreboding foggy vistas of Silent Hill, rather than the realistic viscerality of modern horror games like Outlast and Dead Space. This would allow players to fill in the blanks with their own conjured fears, which are perhaps much scarier than anything a designer could implement in a game.”

(Moodboard for the game)

Level Design:The following screenshots are taken directly from the game, and are snippets of the levels I was responsible for creating.

STORYBOARDING & DIGITAL ART

I use Adobe Photoshop and PaintTool - SAI for creation of art and diffuse mapping. Some examples of my work:

3D-MODELLINGAsset creation is not my main area of interest, but knowing how to create a 3D model might be useful in other aspects, such as presenting a prototype of an idea to team members or to aid in the design process. I use Autodesk 3D Studio Max and Blender to create my models. Here are some examples of my work: