Vault 119 (My Thesis!)
Vault 119 is a single player level in the game Fallout 4. It is the artifact that accompanies my thesis researching the best practices for Environmental Storytelling. The quest asks the player to explore and gather the data from a newly discovered Vault 119, a vault where all of the residents were secretly being experimented on, having their ability to communicate taken away.
In it, the player explores the Vault and using context clues, terminal entries, and other environmental storytelling techniques, slowly pieces together what happened. |
Engine: Creation Kit
Role: Sole Designer Team Size: Solo Project Platform: PC, Steam |
Thesis Defense and Documentation
Goals
- Build a believable Vault Space
In order to have the player feel truly immersed in the space, I needed to create an environment that would conceivably have been able to be lived in. To do this, I researched and took a great deal of reference images of two Vaults in Fallout 4 (95 and 75) in order to have mine fit the same Aesthetic Language (more on that later).
In the end, this actually greatly helped me, as I got my idea for the 1 way mirrors from Vault 75! - Add a plethora of Micro-Narratives
Another way I needed to make the space feel once occupied was to populate it with (dead) people and the remnants of them. When someone lives, they leave small stories about themselves, and so I needed to be diligent and add as many as I could to truly communicate that people lived and died in this Vault. - Slowly breadcrumb the story to the player
A more difficult goal, as this area is intended to be openly explored with little direction. I managed to accomplish this by putting key nuggets of the story in quest choke points that I knew the player would come across. That way, they could still feel like they're freely exploring the area while also getting the necessary information about the environment.
I got this idea from a practice I researched I call, "Put Them Where They'll Be," more on that later. - Have them feel like they're uncovering a story
To make it engaging, I couldn't just have one terminal that explained every single detail of what happened, who lived here, what they thought, etc. That would take the fun and magic away from exploring the corpse of this space and discovering things about its inhabitants. I needed to be more obtuse, breaking apart and spreading the information out everywhere so that the player could piece it together themselves.
I got this practice from my research, I call it, "Pull Design," more on that later.
Map Designs in Vault 119
Theoretical vs. Practical Practices Used in Vault 119
In my research, I ended up dividing the practices I found into two categories: Theoretical and Practical.
A “theoretical” or “conceptual” practice is a trick or method that is best thought of before the actual building of a game level. They are concepts that are overarching and deal with things such as structure, narrative design, and level design as a whole.
A “practical” practice is a method that is best for when the designer is building the level. It’s for deciding where to put the pieces, how to put them, and what they look like. |
Theoretical Practices in Vault 119
Theoretical Practices consist of: Pull Design, White Space Storytelling, “Slow Them Down”, and “Put Them Where They’ll Be.”
Pull Design: In his 2016 GDC talk, Randy Smith, game designer for the series Thief, discusses the concept of Pull Design. Pull Design is the concept of designing stories that don’t push the narratives onto the player. Rather, the player pulls the narratives from the environment and draws conclusions themselves. White Space Storytelling: White Space Storytelling comes from Harvey Smith and Matthias Worch’s GDC 2010 talk. It is the idea of not telling the players the whole story, allowing them to fill in gaps themselves and come to their own conclusions. Slow Them Down: Richard Rouse III’s “Slow Them Down” concept states that game designers should allow their players to wander around an environment. A simple concept, the logic is that if the designer forces the player to stay in one environment (either for a puzzle or a narrative reason), the player will be able to look around and soak in the micro-narrative more. With piece-finding puzzles (seen typically in Silent Hill games), this is doubly effective, as they’re actively scanning the environment and paying attention to it. Put Them Where They'll Be: Justin Rodriguez, in his GDC 2018 talk explained that for XCOM 2, he realized the best place to put his micro-narratives were where the players typically visit. “High cover was priceless because we know players that were playing… would move from high cover as it was the safest bet in game...That is where I started putting all of my decoration and stories - around high cover,” said Rodriguez. |
Practical Practices in Vault 119
Aesthetic Language Examples in Vault 119
An offshoot of shape language, Miriam Bellard, Art Director for Visual Development at Rockstar Games, defines aesthetic language as the act of using hallmarks of styles to evoke the same imagery and draw comparisons.
In her 2021 talk, Miriam Bellard describes an “aesthetic” as a framework, and to identify the key aspects of that framework to be able to work within it. Some examples she uses are:
In her 2021 talk, Miriam Bellard describes an “aesthetic” as a framework, and to identify the key aspects of that framework to be able to work within it. Some examples she uses are:
- The density of objects in the style
- The colours used in the style
- The shapes used in the style
Semiotics Examples in Vault 119
To put simply, semiotics is the study of signs and how people use signs to communicate ideas. Knowing that a red octagonal sign is a stop sign or seeing a smoke plume and knowing that there’s a fire at the source of it is engaging in semiotics.
Symbols in terms of semiotics is an abstract symbol that represents something. A stop sign is a symbol, the Radiation icon is a symbol, etc. Because they are abstract, they need to be taught and reinforced. In terms of environmental storytelling, they can be a very powerful tool to use.
For example, Randy Smith in Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon, establishes early on in the game that the child character always leaves toys wherever they go. So, when the player discovers toys in a certain room, they can deduce that the child character was there at some point. Randy Smith calls this specific method a Calling Card, but the overarching idea is a symbol in semiotics.
For example, Randy Smith in Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon, establishes early on in the game that the child character always leaves toys wherever they go. So, when the player discovers toys in a certain room, they can deduce that the child character was there at some point. Randy Smith calls this specific method a Calling Card, but the overarching idea is a symbol in semiotics.
Indexes when talking about semiotics is when something has a causal or situational relationship to another thing. Seeing smoke and knowing that fire is at is source is using the index of smoke to deduce that there is fire. It's like the player turning into a detective, having them gather the remnants or clues of what happened and putting the story together using those pieces. In terms of design, a way to think about indexes is by asking:
- What happened here?
- How has it left its clues in the space?
Staging Scenes Examples in Vault 119
A ‘staged scene’ or ‘vignette’ is a moment frozen in time that the player is able to see and ingest from one frame. The culmination and inclusion of many of the other Practical Practices, it is typically a fully encapsulated story that has all of the pieces in view for the player to put together.