Veltino Grove

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Project Overview

Veltino Grove is a cute foraging simulator made as

part of the 2024 IndieCade Summer Climate Jam where

I worked as an Intern as part of the Let Us Cook team

to help make the game. This game was made in 6

weeks with much of my level design and building done

in the last week.

I had several roles on the team but was primarily a Level/Environment Designer and a Narrative Designer. I added dialog to the game's script, edited and wrote several sections of the GDD, and authored a Lore Document that contains a detailed list of ingredients for the in-game recipes.

Most importantly, I built and designed most of the game's map in Unreal by sculpting the landscape, painting it with textures, and spawning trees on it. I then populated the world by placing ingredient spawners, NPCs with dialog, and props throughout. To make the world more realistic, I added a particle effect of leaves blowing in the wind.

Cutesy Foraging Simulator
June - July 2024
Unreal Engine 5
PC
Made With a Team of 11
My Roles on Team
- Lead Level Designer
- Narrative Designer
- Systems Designer

The Player Entering the Main Town

Shot Displaying the Main town from Above With A Leaf Bowing VFX I made

Main Village with Plates of Food

Overhead Shot of the Forest and the Pond

Designing The World Map

The main map for Veltino Grove is roughly circular, surrounded by mountains, with a village in the center. This village, where the player's restaurant is located, serves as the main hub of the game. I placed it in the middle so it would be equal distance from everything on the map and easy to find.

The final version of the map is divided into four quadrants divided by a river running north to south and a path running east to west. These two landmarks give the player something to follow and a way to navigate around the world. The river has three bridges to make crossing possible.

Early Rough Draft of the Map

Final Version of the Map

To help the player keep track of the large map, I asked one of the team artists to make a simple 2D drawing of the grove, which I then placed as a diegetic map in the game world as a piece of parchment. I added a slide wobble effect to the map to make it look like it was blowing in the wind.

Having the map be simple and diegetic means the player can get a sense of the world, but still needs to use navigation and exploration skills to properly get around.

Diegetic Map

Rivers and Pathways

While designing the map, I realized I would need a logical end point for the river to prevent it from looking like a long lake. Since the map wasn't shaped to have it bend out of the player’s view, and I didn't have the art assets to make a waterfall, I created two caves at the ends that the river flows into. These caves use a black plane to give the illusion of depth and the water flowing into darkness

South Cave Enterance

Cave Locations

North Cave Enterance

I added signs with location names to the ends of the path, hinting at the wider world of the game without needing any more assets or descriptions.

Sign Talking About a Nearby Town

Sign Talking About a Nearby Town

I also added signs to the river crossings to make them more distinct, and so the player can easily know which crossing they are currently at.

Sign at South River Crossing

Adding Uniqueness

Similarly, I also came up with the idea of using concept art made by the team's artists within the game itself as art on advertisements for the player’s restaurant. These elements add realism to the world building and serve as a diegetic way of showing the player what the recipes they can make in game.

Restaurant Advertisements With Recipes

Due to time limits, our character artists were only able to produce two custom character models for NPCs to populate our world. I then suggested the idea of having another artist quickly create a set of low poly hats, which could be placed on different NPCs to give them more personality and distinguish them from others with the same model. I further differentiated the NPCs by having them hold different things based on their role in the world. Later, different clothing texture colors were added to help with this as well.

NPC With A Fancy Ribbon Hat

Crazy NPC With a Pot on His Head

NPC With a Cowboy to Make Him Distinct

NPC Warning of Climate Disaster

Writing Dialog

Almost all of the game's dialog was written by me. The dialog is primarily designed to flesh out the world through quirky characters and to inform the game's systems. Since the theme of the Game Jam was climate change and the risk of ruining the environment, I also included dialog warning of this potential outcome.

The dialog is presented in a linear fashion, with the player clicking "Continue" to see the next line of text. The side of the window shows the speaker, which alternates between the player character and the NPC being addressed.

NPC Telling the Player About Findable Mushrooms

"The forest will die all over again just like during that Bear's time. It all ends the same."

"There are two mushrooms. Sunburnt mushrooms which are brown and very common, and Blue goo Mushrooms which are much rarer."

Ingredient Spawning

Since the primary goal Veltino Grove is to collect ingredients, I added a variety of ingredient spawners throughout the map. These were made by our team’s lead programmer, and spawned a certain number of any given item randomly throughout a certain radius. I placed these spawners all over the map, taking care to vary the frequency.

I made some items, like Brown Sunburnt Mushrooms, common (with spawners nearly everywhere), while making other ingredients, like Blue Goo Mushrooms, much rarer (only spawning around a certain pond).

Blue Goo Mushrooms (Top) and Sunburnt Mushrooms (Bottom)

To encourage the player to explore every part of the map, I made certain ingredients, like the heart shaped Charity fruit, spawn most frequently on one side of the map, while placing others, including the meat-like Abattoir plants, primarily on the opposite side.

Abatoir Meat Plants Spawning Across the Ground

Charity Fruits Spawning Across the Ground

To teach the player what each plant looks like, I added an NPC holding all the ingredients in the village

NPC with All Ingredients On Him

No ingredients spawn in the deep forest region, as that area is mostly barren except for a hidden area the player can find.

Ingredient Spawning Locations Map

Secrets To Find

To make the map more fun to explore, I added a variety of secrets and small details the player can find while searching for ingredients. These secrets primarily used pre-existing assets arranged in unique or weird ways to save on resources.

For instance, there is a hidden house in the deep woods with a unique NPC that connects to the game’s story. This encounter can be found by following a trail of cooking supplies through the woods:

I also added many little details that can be found to make the player’s searches more memorable, such as fallen trees, rock piles, campsites, and a few NPCs having a tea party. These reward the player for being willing to explore the world more.

Trail of Supplies Leading To A Secret Houe

Secret Tea Party

Mysterious Stone Pile

One of Several Fallen Trees