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Castle Ysres

Castle Ysres was initially designed as an immersive VR experience of exploring a castle built by a continent-spanning empire. The player is lost in the castle's dungeon, their previous rank and title offering very little comfort in the twisting passages.
Castle Ysres itself is in the fantasy land of Corvana, previously featured in another game of mine, Crisis At Howelton. Here, I wanted to show the weirder side of the client kingdom of Granthart, the dungeon being chock-full of secrets and intrigue.

I went into designing Castle Ysres as a formless adventure, focusing on a variety of individual interactions than an overarching plot or end goal. I always imagined that the player might encounter an exit, but I prefered to have it as a sprawling experience where the player simply explored. To add to the adventure and atmosphere, I implemented some randomisation features within the level design so no two playthroughs were the same, supported by a large pool of content and puzzles that the player can encounter
Drawing on older dungeon-delving games, I wanted to create an environment that felt old and sprawling, levels going deeper into the earth and evoking more mystery from the setting.