Hi! I'm Clément, a Level Designer also know as Kemsou, I created Cosmic Contact with a friend akitl during the Ludum Dare 50 game jam and I wanted to share a little bit what my design intention was, as it was quite experimental for me :nerd:

I've wanted to design horror game for a while but I was always scared to not be able to create the right mood and to fall flat. But hey, Game Jams are for trials and errors so here I went :grin: I'm pretty happy with my first result :sunglasses: Let me share with you how I tried to use the space of my game to build tension and uneasiness for the player :ghost:.

What a friendly place, so easy to navigate!

So, one of the aspect that makes us enjoy a game is when we build knowledge of the space as a player, right ? When we can navigate complex maze with ease and are able to build a mental map, it feels like we built a territory where we are safe.

*That's a corridor you learn to know during the first phase, quite cozy, right ? :smile: *

But what happens if this territory suddenly changes? Something is off, this space you used to know and dominate is not so safe anymore. A bit like the uncanny valley, you know :robot: . That's EXACTLY because the space is familiar but a little detail has changed for no reason that it feels creepy and even threatening.

*The same corridor in phase 3. Not so cozy anymore :sweatsmile: *

In Cosmic Contact, there are roughly 3 phases, the first one is calm and chill, the player is told to talk to everyone in the ship, this has the purpose of posing a context and, more importantly, let the player build familiarity with the space. During the second phase, there is an emergency and the player has to use their knowledge of the space to go quickly from a point A to a point B with just a few details that changed to start building tension and uneasiness. And finally, third phase, we totally crush the player bearings by totally changing the space. (for those curious how we did this, we just teleported the player to a new place that looks exactly like the one they are in, but with a difference afterwards)

Well, I won't lie, lighting and sound design also play a huge role and to be honest I wanted to change the space way more than what I did in Cosmic Contact but you can only do so much in 72 hours :clock1: I hope some of you were interested at understanding a bit more what I tried to do with this entry and I hope you will enjoy(or already have enjoyed) the result :wink: