Development of Orpheus
About the game
Orpheus is a single-player 3D puzzle adventure game with stealth elements. Players take on the role of Orpheus, navigating the darkness of the Greek underworld to rescue his beloved Eurydice. The game was developed as a student project for the "Game Praktikum" course.
Orpheus offers around 5 minutes of gameplay and is playable on Windows.
Website: https://www.hdm-stuttgart.de/stage/projekt_detail/projekt_details?projekt_ID=3895
The Team & Project management
Our team consisted of 21 students from five different degree programs, including many international students from four different countries. English was used consistently within the team and for all documentation.
Following a studio-like structure, we organized ourselves into departments: Project Management, Quality Assurance, Engineering, AI Engineering, Graphics, Sound, and Game Design. I was part of the Game Design team, along with two other students.
We used Confluence and Jira for documentation and task management, and Git for version control. The project was structured around four milestones spread over four months.
Game Design Document & Asset List
At the beginning of the project, my responsibility was to create the Game Design Document, including an asset list, in Confluence. Every mechanic was discussed in detail with my fellow game design team members and the engineering department.
I divided the asset list into the following categories: 2D, User Interface, 3D Models, Sound Effects, UI Sound Effects, Voice Lines, Music, and Animations. Each required asset was coordinated in advance with the Graphics and Sound departments.
Layouts
My main task was level design. For each level, I started by making simple map layouts—either as sketches or small builds using Lego. These helped me figure out the structure and gameplay.
Then I made perspective layouts in Affinity Designer. These were meant to help the Graphics team better understand what assets were needed. I stayed in close contact with them to make sure everything fit together.
Once the Graphics team, the Game Design team, and I agreed on what the level should include, I moved on to creating the blockout.
Blockout
In total, I created blockouts for 7 levels, 2 of which were included as finished levels in the final version of the game.
I built the blockouts in Unity using the ProBuilder plugin.
My focus was on placing walls, interactive elements, lighting, particle effects, checkpoints, and enemies—including their patrol routes.
Playtests
In close collaboration with the QA department, I created questionnaires for playtesting. We involved the whole team, friends, and other volunteers as testers.
The questions focused on things like enemy and mechanic balance, immersion, difficulty level, frustration points, controls, and feedback elements.
The results were reviewed and discussed together with the rest of the game design team.
Thanks to the feedback, we were able to adjust the difficulty, reduce player frustration, improve the controls, and better balance individual mechanics.
Release
Orpheus was released for Windows and later showcased at the "Medianight".
This event takes place twice a year at the end of each semester and is held to present multimedia projects from the Stuttgart University of Media to the public.
Hundreds of guests played Orpheus at the event and provided us with valuable feedback through questionnaires.
