Sol
July 2020
Sol is a singleplayer game combining puzzle, platforms and exploration on a mysterious island...
In Sol, the player is free to explore the world of a missing civilization dotted with many puzzles and narrative interactibles. With vaulting / jumping / sprint skills, the player can visit every corner and look for elements that would be useful for solving puzzles. Sol is a game deprived of any UI, the player must then pay attention to every detail in his environment to progress.
Details
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Genre : Puzzle, contemplative, narrative.
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Singleplayer.
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Art style : 3D low poly.
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Goal : Solve puzzles during the game experience to discover the history of the island of Sol.
Technical details
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Support : PC
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Engine : Unreal Engine 4.24
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View : Third-person
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Collaborators : 7 members, from e-artsup school.
Narration
Following a conflict between the two deities of Sol's island, Maun and Devani, respectively God of Chaos, and God of Life. All living forms disappeared except for one being, the character incarnated by the player, because he’s been silent since birth and excluded by society. It is up to you to write the future of the island by tracing the steps of a missing civilization...
Game / Level Design
Sol is a game composed essentially of puzzles accessible by exploring the different areas of the island by jumping and climbing the different obstacles on your way.
Sketches of the main character and the Gods by Andrea Gil Laranjo
Puzzle Design
Sol aims to be a calm and simple game. As a result, puzzles are more considered as easily understandable interactions. Our production criteria is to immerse the player in the world, thus strongly limit the explicit indications (guides, tutorials etc...) and promote the intrinsic signs of the game.
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Also, my main idea was to create unique puzzles in order to pace his progress :
Lighthouse Puzzle
He can then turn the pieces as he wishes to solve the puzzle.
Tiki's Puzzle
Here is how the Tiki's Puzzle works, step by step :
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• The player is surrounded by 4 pillars (tikis). Each contains 3 rotative pieces which can create a pattern.
• These combinations can be found via a spyglass, located on top of a climbable tower nearby.
• When all 4 combinations are found, they will all be displayed near their respective pillar.
• At last, the player can now rotate pieces to match the combinations. The puzzle is now done and as a reward, the player will receive one of the 3 amulet parts.
The Tiki's puzzle was built to be an introduction to the main part of Island. Since it is the first puzzle that the player encounters after the zipline stage, the main design objective of this puzzle was to make the player learn his surroundings and what he can expect to be doing next.
Ruined Temple
This temple was once a place the islands' residents would cherish. One the gods is represented by a statue surrounded by tall stone columns.
The Ruined Temple is the only platformer puzzle in Sol. It contains different mechanisms. The statue being one of them, is very useful as it helps the player reaching for different levels of the temple. Once the reach, a precious item can be collected.
Artistic Contribution
During my years studying Game Design in Bellecour Ecole & e-artsup, I had the chance to learn about 3D modeling. I've learned a lot through youtube tutorials about using Autodesk Maya features. Then, I was able to dedicate myself to do 3D tasks, such as : low poly modeling, UV mapping, texturing...
Particle systems are also one of my favorite assets to produce for game projects. For, Sol, I mainly used Photoshop and the Unreal integrated editor "Cascade" for my creations since they were simple visual effects such as :
smoke, volumetric fog, player footsteps, fire, tiki's... see more on the Gallery Page.
Sol was for sure my favorite project to work on so far. With this many members of the project, the group got along very well and was very productive even through hard times. It was a great experience and I am truly happy that one of my projects could finally be considered as a"complete game".
Lucas UNY (Environment Art. / Folliage Art.)
Lisa BOILEAU
(Programmer)
Victor DIDIER (Programmer)
Lucas LECANTE (Level / Puzzle Designer + 2D/3D Art.)
Andrea GIL LARANJO (Concept Art.)
Dorian S
(Sound Designer)
Baptiste MIGLIORINI (Level / Puzzle Designer + Sound Design)
Tom M
(Sound Designer)
Paul OVIGNY
(3D Artist)
Sacha LEBON (Narrative Designer / Producer)
Honourable Mentions
Here are some links to videos made by @Gphobia and @Cryptic Hybrid of their experience from Sol. We did not expect that much investment from our players and we are really grateful for their honests reviews !