The White Room is a game concept built around a deeply engaging and introspective narrative. This project explores the experience of a person battling their inner struggles to save themselves. Through a beautifully crafted journey spanning ten levels, each featuring two distinct dimensions to explore, players are taken on a narrative rollercoaster that delves into the highs and lows of the protagonist's journey. The story follows a young boy confronting his past trauma, overcoming significant challenges, and uncovering newfound strength to reclaim his sense of self and restore his world.

The White room

Aims and Objectives

The primary aim of The White Room is to create a deeply immersive and introspective gaming experience that allows players to explore the emotional and psychological struggles of a young protagonist confronting his past trauma. The game seeks to achieve this by crafting a narrative-driven journey through ten uniquely designed levels, each featuring two dimensions that players must strategically navigate.

Objectives

Providing a meaningful and emotionally engaging narrative that unfolds through exploration, puzzles, and environmental interactions.
Designing levels that depict significant moments in the protagonist's life, such as school premises, a small city block, and an enchanted forest, to create relatable and immersive environments.
Encouraging players to use a portal mechanism to seamlessly switch between dimensions, adding depth and strategy to gameplay.
Delivering the game’s lore through interactive items and quests, promoting discovery without overwhelming players with excessive guidance.
Crafting abstract enemies and challenges that represent the protagonist's inner struggles, driving the story and gameplay forward.

Conceptualization

The White Room is a narrative-driven game exploring a boy's journey to confront past trauma and reclaim his strength. The game features ten levels, each representing an emotional theme like Anxiety or Despair, with dual dimensions—real and dreamlike—that players navigate to solve puzzles and progress. Stylized graphics inspired by Final Fantasy XIV and abstract enemies reflecting past struggles add depth to the experience. Core mechanics include dimension-shifting and interactive storytelling through quests, NPCs, and collectables, creating an immersive and emotionally resonant gameplay experience.

Ideation

Ideation process involved in deciding what type of gameplay the project will adapt to.
Game engine and software oriented decisions for prototyping.
The critical gameplay mechanics were drawn out
Plot of the story was devised into quest system.
style of the game had to be drawn out
Documentation of every step began as well as began forming Game Design Document.

Narration

The White Room presents a deeply emotional and introspective story that follows the journey of a young boy confronting his inner demons to overcome past trauma. The narrative is structured across ten intricately designed levels, each representing a unique emotional theme, such as Anxiety, Shame, and Despair. These levels immerse players in the protagonist's struggles, as he navigates his inner world to find strength and redemption.

Storytelling Approach

The narrative unfolds through engaging story quests, interactive dialogues, and environmental storytelling. Each level introduces:

Emotional Themes: The protagonist's journey reflects key emotional struggles, with every level offering a symbolic exploration of these feelings.
Dual Dimensions: Players explore both a real-world setting and a dreamlike alternate reality, using a portal mechanism to switch between them. This adds depth to the narrative, showcasing the protagonist's internal and external battles.
Abstract Enemies: Inspired by Wonder Egg Priority, enemies are stylized manifestations of the protagonist's past trauma, providing meaningful challenges that tie directly to the story.

Key Highlights

Immersive Settings: Levels are set in symbolic environments, such as a school, a bustling marketplace, and an enchanted forest, each aligning with the emotional theme.
Interactive Elements: NPCs, collectable items, and puzzles provide players with opportunities to uncover lore and gain insights into the protagonist's journey.
Player Choice: Through exploration and decision-making, players actively participate in shaping the story’s progression, making each encounter impactful and personal.

Thematic Depth

At its core, The White Room is a tale of resilience and self-discovery, guiding players through the highs and lows of the protagonist’s emotional landscape. The game aims to connect with players on a profound level, offering a narrative experience that resonates long after the final level is complete.

Documents

Story

GDD

Prototype Tool

Problem & Solutions

Narrative: Balancing Complexity and Player Perception

Challenge: The story, though relatively short, was intricate and needed to maintain an illusion of branching narrative without actually incorporating branching paths. Additionally, companion quests and dialogues had to be designed to align with the dual-dimension system, creating a deliberate sense of confusion for players while still being comprehensible.

Solution:

The quest system was designed to simulate the illusion of branching paths by offering multiple choices and outcomes that converge at key points, creating an immersive and layered experience.
Companion dialogues and quests were carefully adjusted for both dimensions, blending subtle hints and cryptic exchanges to enhance the player’s feeling of navigating a fractured reality.

Graphics: Achieving a Unique and Immersive Style

Challenge: Developing a graphic style that could support the dual dimensions while ensuring consistency and visual appeal, drawing inspiration from Control.

Solution:

Implemented a stylized graphic approach influenced by Control, with distinct palettes and textures for each dimension.
Maintained a cohesive art direction that blended abstract and realistic elements, ensuring that the visual language supported the narrative's emotional tone

Level Design: Merging Two Dimensions Seamlessly

Challenge: Designing levels for two distinct dimensions, each with its own visual style, while ensuring they converge at critical moments to maintain the illusion of being lost in a dimensional shift.

Solution:

Introduced a portal mechanic for transitioning between dimensions and an hourglass-like device (similar to Inception’s spinning top) to track reality. This device provided players with a tool to gauge their dimensional state while reinforcing the sense of disorientation.
Carefully designed transitions and visual cues that subtly guide players while maintaining the illusion of being lost.

Prototyping: Companion AI and Portal Mechanic

Challenge: The most significant hurdles were developing the companion AI and implementing the portal mechanic to enable seamless transitions between dimensions. The limited development time compounded the difficulty.

Solution:

Companion AI was designed with basic functionality to interact within both dimensions, ensuring it responded appropriately to environmental changes and player actions.
The portal mechanic was implemented to a functional level, enabling dimensional shifts and maintaining gameplay flow. While refinement was limited due to time constraints, the prototype successfully demonstrated the core concepts.

Gameplay

To Blog