Jiaxing's Portfolio
Happy Lane 403
A psychological horror game
Celebrate the massive attention Happy Lane 403 has achieved. Nearly 300,000 people watched the promotional video!
Introduction
Happy Lane 403 is a psychological horror game that emphasizes the impact of the family environment on children. The main purpose of this game is to appeal to players to provide children with a positive childhood experience. Affected by traditional culture, knowledge level, and economic level, a large number of Chinese parents fail to notice the possible consequences of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Therefore, I plan to let players empathize, immerse themselves in the role of the game, and correctly understand the causes and consequences of ACEs.
Props
Furniture
Environment
Software & Technology Used
Unreal 5, Maya, Substance, Adobe After Effect, Adobe Audition, Adobe Illustrator, Procreate, Photoshop
Level Design
The level design of Happy Lane 403 is my most important part, especially the environment design. I combined the Chinese scene in the 90s with the concepts of surrealism and Liminal space to show the psychological trauma of children. This topic is also the research direction of my thesis. My target users are young adults in China. I hope to arouse their immersion and empathy by creating environments and elements that make them feel familiar, so as to encourage players to reflect on their parenting style and reduce the occurrence of ACEs.
About the name of the game
Happy Lane is a very common name for a community in China, which often consists of multiple apartment buildings. The name represents the desire for a happy life. However, the life of the protagonist in the game is not happy. Thus, the name is used for comparison and irony. At the same time, being a very common name may arouse familiarity among players.
Old Chinese apartments are often divided into two families on each floor. Therefore, the house number is often named according to the rules of 101, 102, 201, 202. However, 403 is not in this rule, implying that the room in the game is not the real world, but the inner world of the protagonist. In addition, 403 in the HTTP status code means access is forbidden. This implies the negative influence of the authoritarian parenting style of the protagonist's strict parents.
History
Since there have been few Chinese-style horror games, my idea of designing such a game has been around since 2018. At that time, my friend and I completed the design of the first scene and some basic operation logic. But due to my study abroad, this project was suspended until 2021 I stopped exploring AR technology and wanted to create a complete and mature work. So we restarted the project. My learning experience at OSU gave me deeper ideas and design methods. So this time I hope I can try my best to make this game perfect in a limited time. Throughout the process, I got a lot of UE4 experience. In the past, due to lack of experience, my model, material, and rendering had many problems. These problems have been improved in the new version. In addition, I have also realized the importance of optimization, and I have a better understanding of UV utilization and the use of high-definition textures. In order to better design the level and optimize the interaction, I continued to study the blueprint in depth. I also plan to continue to study rendering and real-time ray tracing after the level design is completed.
Credits
Co-Designer: Jiaxing Gao / Zhi Yang
Programming: Zhi Yang / Jiaxing Gao
Level Design: Jiaxing Gao / Zi Yuan
Modeling: Jiaxing Gao / Zhi Yang
AI: Jiaxing Gao
UI: XueChen Lie/Zhi Yang/Jiaxing Gao
Animation: Jiaxing Gao