Ruins of the Colossus

Beauty Renders

Graybox Development

The majority of my time was spent grayboxing the level, playtesting, and further iterating. I indeed spent many months, in between classes and jobs, creating the foundations that would become the final product. It started with a very rough top-down layout drawing, and then several graybox versions.

Below are pictures that showcase the evolution of the graybox at every stage from first to final pass. You can see as ideas for layout, lighting, and level structure overall evolve dramatically before reaching the final iteration.

When I had finalized the layout the temple, before I set out to begin actually building the thing, I wanted an idea of what the temple would look like if you could see it from the outside. I had no intention of creating it to that extent, but it was a very helpful visual exercise to understand the space best.

Modular Kit

I created an extensive, 200 piece modular kit, including all varieties of asset needed to construct the architecture of this ruined temple.

Colossus Design

My primary disciplines are level art and level design, so when it came to designing the colossus, I was lost. Thankfully, I was able to rely on the talents of my character art inclined fellow Rookies, Ryan Cline and Derek Franciosi.

Ryan was kind enough to create the design of the colossus based on some conversations we had about desert fauna and the designs of colossi in Shadow of the Colossus. You'll see this pictured below.

Derek created a subtle breathing animation on the colossus model I created, implying that the creature was dormant but still living. This concept tied into the blood vine concepts mentioned above, but was mostly scrapped for time.

Worldbuilding

While the primary goal of the project was to simply create an immersive game level, a lot of thought indeed went into the world I was creating. With Shadow of the Colossus as a key source of inspiration, I knew I wanted to create a vast temple that was built around a colossal creature. So I began to ask questions like "Why was this temple actually built?" and "What happened to the people who built it?". These questions were pivotal in realizing the idea of the level.

Temple Backstory

Centuries ago, the people of the desert discovered a colossus. They revered it as a god but also feared it, and thus promised to build a temple of worship around its domain atop a mountain. But they also imprisoned the colossus in the fortress. For many years, they bled the colossus in rites, believing its blood to hold some power. The blood was kept instead of water in the temple basin, and in smaller dishes throughout the temple. Sages would interpret the vibrations rippled in each pool as the colossus thundered, and bells hung in a tower adjacent to the inner sanctum -- the prison of the colossus -- would ring out throughout the desert to signify its might.

The temple came to ruin when the its people became overzealous and bled too much from the colossus. It entered a rage of agony and broke free of its chains, its thunderous roars causing an earthquake that devastated much of the temple and killed many of the inhabitants of the temple. The colossus collapsed into a heap, imprisoned forevermore in the ruins.

Scrapped Ideas

Early on, I liked the idea of blood as a key motif in the design of the temple. I had ideas for blood-stained tapestries painted with splatters the colossus' stomping would cause to spill out from basins. I also designed a logo for the project and the colossus itself (pictured below), which is both an abstraction of the colossus' design and symbolism for blood drops falling into a basin.

I wanted to create a system of bloodred vines weaving through the temple, that would lead the player through the halls and ultimately to the colossus itself. This was cut for time, as were many blood-related elements, such as pools and stains left in the temple tank, and the aforementioned tapestries.