Sonar [WIP]
Personal Project
Embedded Files
Development Information
Responsibilities
Game, Level, Narrative Design
Programming
Project
Warning : This is an ongoing project, it is not finished yet.
In Sonar, you are a technician aboard BLS 95, an isolated sonar station on a ocean planet, probing the unknown depths. But the latest activation has triggered a catastrophic retaliation from the depths of the ocean. The station is foundering, the air is turning toxic, and the maintenance robots are turning against you. Your survival depends on your ingenuity and your maintenance equipment.
Game Design
The player is a foam maintenance worker who must understand and manipulate a vertical megastructure station to escape. Players explore the levels, using their foam gun to solve puzzles and create alternative paths, or by finding passwords to unlock doors and progress the story.
Player Tool
The core mechanic is the versatile 'foam gun,' used for creative traversal, environmental problem-solving like sealing breaches, and managing threats from aggressive robots. Additionally, the gun features a secondary laser used to burn away placed foam.
Place foam
Shoot foam that sticks to most surfaces.
(Mouse Left Click)
Remove foam
Shoot a laser that burns the foam.
(Mouse Right Click)
Environmental Hazard
There are several types of environmental hazards: fire, electricity that can be neutralized by shooting foam onto the exposed source, and radioactivity, exclusively found in the reactor.
Rather than dealing damage, the radioactive field directly impairs the player's equipment: it rapidly burns away placed foam, destabilizes aiming, and significantly reduces the gun's effective range.
Electricity
Deals burst damage.
Fire
Deals Damage over Time.
Threats
Corrupted Maintenance Robot (Fire)
It is small and flies, and can shoot flames. The player can foam it to make it fall to the ground, then press the button on its head to permanently neutralize it.
Aquatic Worm (Electricity)
Big alien worms that come from the depths to neutralize the Sonar station by producing a white toxic structures around it. The player can shoot foam on its body segments to slow it down and eventually stun it for a minute. Its head is electrified, so the player must avoid being too close.
The station : BLS-95
Inspiration
Set on a massive floating megastructure, distinct themed zones are linked by a central elevator. Inspired by Prey’s Talos I, this logically interconnected architecture offers multiple traversal routes. Players can also venture out into the exterior ocean to find alternative paths and experience the station's true scale.
To keep the project's scope manageable, I opted for an untextured, flat-color art direction. This approach allows me to work with highly advanced blockouts and iterate freely without friction.
To make aquatic exploration more engaging, I drew inspiration from space stations and Bowellism architectural movement that exposes a building's inner workings on the outside. I pushed the station's internal spaces out into the open water, wrapping the structures in massive cables that also serve a direct gameplay purpose. Furthermore, I defined the station's modules using primary geometric shapes to give them distinct, memorable silhouettes.
Macro Structure
Spaces of the station
Top to Bottom
Radar and Data Processing
The radar and antennas receive and send data to other satellites and stations across the planet.
Data Processing Room
Small room located at the apex of the station, where sonar scan results are read and the ocean planet mapping project takes place.
Plaza
The Plaza is an outdoor area for the staff. It serves as both a recreational space and an agricultural zone, featuring a dedicated garden.
Garden
The garden is the main agricultural zone of the station. It helps maintain the station's self-sufficiency during resupply delays, which is the situation during the game.
Gameplay
The player can restore health by eating fruits found in the area.
The station's gardener is being attacked by corrupted maintenance robots, and the player has the opportunity to rescue her.
Diving Deck
The other side of the Plaza is dedicated to divers, but today it is the site of a rather macabre birthday party.
Gameplay
The player can investigate the party scene to uncover clues leading to a survivor hidden elsewhere in the station.
Arrivals & Briefing
A large office room used for meetings and by HR to welcome new arrivals.
Gameplay
The player can acquire a new suit that provides increased protection against elemental damage. It also allows the player to swim deeper and breathe underwater indefinitely.
Players can discover the station's history and its primary purpose: scanning the ocean planet.
Life Support
The Life Support sector is where water and air are treated to ensure they are safe for the station's staff to drink and breathe.
Water Treatment
The facility where ocean water is pumped into reservoirs to be desalinated. The purified water is essential for the station's agriculture, drinking supply, and generating additional ammunition for the foam dispensers.
Gameplay
The player must align the water pipes to restore the flow of the desalination process, converting salt water into fresh water. This reactivates tap water across the entire station, providing the player with new ways to heal.
Air Treatment
The main hub designed to filter and purify the station's air, currently overrun and heavily obstructed by hazardous, toxic white bubbles.
Gameplay
The player must clear the area of toxic white bubbles using the gun's built-in laser.
Submarine and Freight Bay
The location where submarines, used for traveling to other sonar stations, are assembled and stored for maintenance. This area also includes a freight section where crates and goods are stored.
Submarine Assembly Bay
The primary dry dock where submarines are stored, docked, and deployed for expeditions.
Gameplay
To prepare a vessel for launch, the player must solve a spatial puzzle by aligning the correct submarine halves, then use the foam gun to "weld" the seam together and merge them into a single unit.
Refueling Station
The depot where the combustible fuel for the submarines is stored.
Gameplay
Once the submarine is assembled, the player must refuel it by using foam to patch active leaks in the pipes, followed by turning a series of valves in a specific sequence.
Cargo Storage
The main logistics warehouse where all goods transported by the submarines—such as food and essential supplies are stockpiled.
Gameplay
Players can freely explore this dense area to uncover hidden lore and useful information.
Crew Quarters
The residential area where the crew lives when off-duty. It features a recreational area, a canteen, dormitories, and a sports complex with a pool that also serves as a direct entryway into the ocean.
Main Square
The central recreational hub where personnel relax, socialize, and dine at the canteen, featuring a massive observation window looking out into the open ocean.
Gameplay
The player has the opportunity to intervene and rescue the station's cook, who is trapped inside the kitchen.
Dormitories
The primary residential sector. It features around 120 beds for standard crew and 8 private condos for station leaders, though the current active population is only around 50 people.
Gameplay
Players can search through personal lockers to gather environmental storytelling. Exploration allows the player to uncover a hidden conspiracy that directly alters the game's ending.
The Pool
A sports and recreation facility that also serves as an access point to the exterior.
Gameplay
The player must use the foam gun to insulate exposed electrical cables to safely open the pool area and exit the Crew Quarters.
Maintenance
Located in the ceiling above the Crew Quarters, this utilitarian crawlspace serves as the starting point of the game.
Gameplay
Acting as an tutorial, the player must use their foam gun to seal several pipe leaks, safely learning the core foam mechanics in a controlled environment.
Destroyed Maintenance
A heavily damaged sector where a massive piece of the station's radar crashed through the roof of the Crew Quarters, flooding the area and creating a dense underwater environment.
Gameplay
A high-density exploration zone that rewards the player with lore and essential passwords.
Power Plant
The Power Plant provides the energy necessary for the station to function properly. It is structured like a tower divided into three parts: the water pumps at the bottom, the control center in the middle, and the reactor at the top.
Water Pump & Engine
Heavy machinery that propels specialized, alien coolant water up to the reactor.
Gameplay
The main objective is to restore the reactor's cooling system by mechanically coupling the engine plate to the propeller plate.
The player can infiltrates the Power Plant through the massive intake propeller and navigates upward through the pipe network.
Control Center
The monitoring hub for the reactor. The intense vibrations from the station's sonar have structurally shattered much of this space.
Gameplay
This room acts as the feedback hub for the power plant reboot puzzle.
Backrooms
A chaotic, maintenance void sandwiched between the Control Center and the Reactor Core.
Gameplay
A purely vertical platforming challenge. The player must creatively utilize the foam gun to forge a path upward through the debris.
Exploration rewards the player with useful lore.
Reactor
The primary power source for the massive sonar array, and the only zone in the game contaminated with radioactivity.
Gameplay
The player must fix structural breaches while being directly affected by radioactivity, which makes it more challenging.
Sonar
Located at the very bottom of the station, the massive sonar is used to send and receive powerful sound waves, scanning deep into the abyss across a vast area of the ocean planet.
Sonar
Gameplay
The player must recalibrate the sonar's "hammer" and "plate" components. By shooting foam onto the glass, players can draw a reference point. Once inside the sonar machinery, they use this drawn reference to correctly turn and align the shapes.
A small control center nearby provides information to hint at the puzzle's solution.
Mission
The player's main objective is to survive and flee the station using a submarine to escape to safety.
Quest System
Quest Log
The game features a quest system with both main and side quests. The player can track them to display related quest markers.
3D Map
The map shows the area the player is currently located in. The player can navigate the station directly in 3D, as all levels are identifiable by their unique exterior shapes.
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