Trailer
The Awaiting Abyss
March, 2023
An atmospheric horror game made in Crayta, created as a solo project in 4 months. The game begins in an abandoned bunker, and as the player moves down they discover more unusual areas, ending in a large underground manor.
First area: The Bunker
The first section of the game takes place in an abandoned bunker. To make it feel more claustrophobic, the corridors require the player to crouch to enter and force the Crayta default camera to first person. Additionally, one way mirrors can be found through out the game, causing the player to feel watched.
Second area: Cells
As the player moves down, the next section of the game they reach is the cells. Upon entering the room, it clearly deviates from the normal bunker they had grown used to, and the large pillars create a labyrinthine feel. However, features such as the ceiling being slanted down prevents the player getting lost in this area, as I didn't want a player to get frustrated about being unsure where to go next. Later, when the pillars lift to reveal the cells, each cell is just around a corner from another one, making it easy to navigate while feeling confusing
Third area: The Manor
On the lowest level, the player first sees a huge underground manor, before entering it from the back. I used google sketchup to model the manor before building it out of voxels in Crayta, and designed it to feel like a georgian manor.
The player enters the manor though a way which lets them first see into the rooms through spyholes and one way mirrors, and there's no entrance in the main part of the building, showing the inhabitant here was trapped and watched. The only lighting comes from the intense artificial light the player walked past when they first saw the manor.
About the project
It was created in Crayta, which was voxel based and had a fixed selection of assets, meaning everything in this project was made with voxels or kitbashing. Any code was done with Lua, or CSS/HTML/Javascript for UI elements. The camera in Crayta was 1st and 3rd person, and was 3rd person by default. As Crayta has shut down, 'The Awaiting Abyss' cannot be played anymore.
When the player enters the final cell, the world clearly breaks from the reality seen up until now. The player travels first up the spiral of random objects, then after going through the void they go down with the objects now forming scenes, hinting at the story.
