TallTales

TallTales

A story rich game, where you play as a detective searching for clues in his surroundings in order to uncover the lies that plagues the world caused by the New Salvation Order. Go around the atmospheric world of TallTales and experience dialogues of different kinds of NPCS and free them by exposing the truth.

I am honored to be invited to be Jushico's Lead Level Designer for UM Game Jam 2024. Below will be showing the process view of how I designed the different levels in 2 days.

The Flower Shop

I chose the design for it to be outdoors, with fence and flowers lingering down the roped rooftop.

The Bridge

I designed this section with something shown under the bridge to let the player feel that they are walking over something. Dim lights are present from the lamplights to illuminate the surroundings.

The Electrician

I designed an Electric Plant right at the end of the level so that the electricity lines and wires can feel like that they are extending out from another place or to another city. Dim lights are added and different color lights on the electric poles. 

The First Boss 

I designed the area by first placing the boss onto the middle, to visualize more with the sprite present. I gave the section a more visualize throne-feel like middle section where the player can feel the boss is inside his own throne. I gave it a bright red light emitting from the boss to give it a more eerie feel to it.  

The Van Gogh Painting Room

I got the Van Gogh Painting from an artist on reddit named, Cronosart99. I inserted the art piece in this room to show to the player of how rich the final boss is. The vines and flowers around the painting frame, the chair and the table in front of the painting to show how elegant the final boss is.

This is Not a Pipe

I designed the level to let the player has a sense of "Everything is not what it seems", so I inserted the painting named "The Treachery of Images (French: La Trahison des Images)", which is a 1929 painting by Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. This painting is famous for the meaning of, "It is an obvious lie." I wanted to let the player know that the final boss is not that easy to be found and deep research and look through the environment and NPCs dialogues is needed to find the real identity of the Final Boss.

The Caged Man

I wanted to make the detective's boss' lair more serious, dark toned, therefore I added a caged man to the area.

The Boss (literally)

I want to make the Boss more serious and big, so I made a throne area for him. A giant chandelier is placed on top of the Boss to make him look more centered in the level.

This is the Game Trailer for our game. The video is posted by our Leader for the game jam day.

Overall experience of the game jam was fun, definitely had a blast especially because this was my first time joining and submitting the final project to the Game Jam pole. 

We won 3rd place in the ranking and we were praised with the stunning lighting and environment designed in the level.

Warm Regards,
IcoValentino