Tavern in the Woods
Tavern in the Woods
A medieval tavern nestled deep in the woods. A place of mystery, intrigue and atmosphere.
Lore
I could feel my skin tingle when the sight of the tavern met my eyes. I had been walking for so long I wasn’t sure I would ever find it, but there it stood in front of me. The grand figure of William Reynard’s tavern. However whether he was still alive and the tavern inhabited by friendly folk I was still to find out.
Notice: This interactive fiction will be launched on stream soon! – I will update this page when its live!
Production Overview
One of the reasons I got into 3D CG, animation and the creation of video games/visual novels is become I love to create atmospheric, absorbing environments and stories. In this sense video games or Interactive Fiction offer a powerfully engaging experience that you don’t get through any other form of media (including movies).
This scene / environment started life as short cinematic sequence and some static rendered images. However, I was contacted by Level 80 and asked if I could share this environment in a metasites on line pixel streaming platform they were developing. Which I agreed to and went about creating an interactive story set in this haunted environment. Unfortunately during the creation process the functionality of these new metasites, did not match the single player environment. So I had to move onto a new distribution platform. Including Steam and Epic Games store.
Production Challenges
The creation of this work was a bit more complex than I expected. And I got stuck several times along the way. Looking at this now – there isn’t all that much code in the environment, but I was learning some aspects of this as I went along. There was times of frustration, but I was always able to find a way forward! For example I wanted to created a rag-doll like fall down of the first person player. Bizarrely there was practically no info on how to do this online! So I figured it out myself and then also shared this as a post on how to create a rag-doll like effect for a first person character.
Interactive Fiction
This is not a game, as such, and is akin to interactive fiction or a visual novel. I am thinking of a better genre title it could be given and when I have done this I will update what I call this. However, interactive fiction is good for now!
Gameplay Guide
The gameplay in this environment is straight forward. It presently uses a keyboard for control and there is only walk, jump and run functions. There are no other controls and you don’t have to use any activate or open, close etc.. buttons.
Gameplay Duration and Save
The game duration for this is around 30 minutes to 1 hour, but could be less or if you enjoy the more exploring the entire level it could be an 2 or 3 hours at most. There is no save function in this environment and due to its short play length a save function does not presently feel required.
Technical Aspects
Created in Unreal Engine 5 with the video and image renders edited in DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Lightroom. Music Dark Fantasy Studio: Underworld. Haunted. Composer Nicolas Jeudy. Originally intended as a standalone environment piece, this cinematic spurred on the creation of an interactive environment with a story line. If there’s enough interest, I may expand it into a animated haunted tale. In the mean time for some more atmospheric ambient videos please see the ambience page.
