Drane's Luminance is a hybrid 2D-3D medieval fantasy RPG with its open world composed of various biomes, enemies and atmospheres. This was my final game design assignment during my Game design course at CG Spectrum under the mentorship of former Ubisoft Lead Game Designer and current Game Design Director at People Can Fly Studio, Philippe Baude.

1. Creating and implementing the different game mechanics and systems
2. Creating the first and initial game's level in terms of layout and landscape using Unreal's landscape tools
3. Dressing up the level, placing assets and setting the mood for each of the different areas (villages, ruins, player start...)
4. Placing and setting up NPCs to populate areas, creating and scripting dialogues for player interactions
5. Testing the different mechanics to ensure an initial base works to expand from it
6. Playtesting the level to have a proper idea of its flow

At the end of every battle, certain items can be dropped from the enemies for the player to obtain. These items will be stored in the inventory.

The inventory will be divided in certain categories (tabs) depending on the nature of the item

1. Items (normal)
2. Potions
3. Equipment
4. Quest Items

One of the ways to obtain certain items and level up the characters will be through quests. There will be a “Quest Log” to keep track of the current quests, grouped based on their category (main, side, tutorial).

1. Main quests: Can give key items, big amounts of experience or even unlock new areas. They will be very related to the extensive lore.
2. Side quests: Can be an addition to the main quests. Can give normal items, smaller amounts of experience or help the player get through certain parts of a concrete location.
3. Tutorial quests: Quests used to explain different mechanics to the player or present new concepts as it progresses through the game.

Quests will have four different categories when it comes to their nature

1. Location: The player needs to reach a certain location to clear the quest and get potential rewards or unlock a new quest/area.
2. Kill: The player needs to kill a concrete number of enemies to clear the quest and get potential rewards.
3. Collect: The player needs to collect a certain item to clear the quest and get potential rewards.
4. Interact: The player can interact with anything within the world (NPC, object, item, etc) and this will trigger a quest you need to clear related to said interaction

Each skill organized following this structure

1. Name
2. Element: 6 or neutral
3. Type: Melee/ Linear/ Top-down/ Ground-up
4. Mana cost: Elemental has, physical does not
5. Target: AOE/ Single
6. Damage: Scales off ATK if neutral or melee/ EATK if elemental
7. Armour piercing: A percentage of total damage (E.g. 20%)
8. Special effects
9. Description

Farming is an important part of the game as the player will be able to obtain different types of seeds and plant them. When finding a plot, he will be able to decide which seed to plant by selecting it from the hotbar placed at the bottom of the UI. Upon deciding, the seed will start to grow. Farming is central to crafting; through farming you will be able to yield potions, items, upgrades to weapons, etc. Farming offers income to the player too for other matters and items they might need inside quests or tasks related to a concrete trial.

The farming system has the following mechanic in terms of steps the player has to do in order to farm plants using the seeds being collected/obtained:

1. Tilling the soil: the player tils the soil to get the plot ready
2. Planting the seed: once tilled, the player can plant a seed
3. Watering the seed: in order for it to grow
4. Day-night cycle: seeds will sprout and grow based on that
5. Destroying a plant: plants can be destroyed by using a sickle
6. Harvesting the plant: once grown, the player can harvest it

You can craft items through the inventory so being able to craft anywhere without needing to find a crafting point around the map. The way to obtain the crafting recipes will be through two different ways:

1. Completing certain quests
2. Buying the recipes in shops. The way to get them might be linked to having to upgrade certain shops in order to unlock the recipes as in the basic shop level they won’t be available.

There will be an in-game achievements system keeping track of all the achievements the player unlocks and their progress. At future stages, steam achievements will also be considered so there are two different systems. For each in-game achievement, the game shows the current progress through notifications appearing on the bottom right. The player can also check the entire list in order to know the progress for each of them is.

In Drane’s Luminance there will be a total of 9 regions distributed in a 3x3 square following this pattern:

The corners of the 3x3 world (except the Initial zone) will be linked to “extreme” zones where the conditions might be a bit harsher towards not only the player but to other creatures, probably limiting the amount of potential populated areas. The rest of “neutral” zones can have special traits like for example the central one which will be decided soon.