Elysium: Development of the Vault (Kenny)

Development of the Vault:

How I (Kenny) made Elysium

Elysium has been a very fun project for me, it's the first of these projects that I had worked on almost entirely alone. I had never really made anything like this before, and I was unsure if my ideas were even good enough to turn into a “proper” game.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Elysium come together and that my vision for this project turned out exactly how I wanted it to. Elysium originally was never going to be a game. I had some rough ideas for a story I wanted to write a few months into 2024. 

Initial Ideas

My basic idea was “Post apocalyptic vault filled with creatures that a small team go and investigate”. I had thought of some characters, those being Griggsy and Beaux-Claire, though never really got further than that. 

Later on, I was thumbnailing some ideas of a character I was going to sculpt for university when I thought of the concept of the visage of a nun being made entirely of flesh and viscera. I am a huge fan of “meat based” horror, some of my favourites being the Mystery Flesh Pit (literally one of my favourite things ever) and Vita Carnis.  

This then developed into a more neat concept, and a sculpt. When I had finished that project it really got me thinking of how I could incorporate my Visceral nun designs into my unfinished horror project. I used the first design for Magdelene, and the second for Mary. 

Later, I looked back at my designs for the visceral nuns and decided to make some more to populate the Elysium Vault. At this stage I had laid out the different levels, described them, and wrote their respective lore into the documents section. Taking inspiration from images I had seen online, I made two more Visceral nuns to add to the group: Jezebel and Atarah.

Liure & Aruykeri

I came up with the concept of a post apocalyptic settlement nestled in snowy mountains by the name of Liure. The world reduced to ashes, Liure was one of the few remaining cities populated by survivors, soldiers and refugees alike. A cozy yet traumatized settlement haunted by the horrors of war. Although without power, Liure posessed an interesting quality, that being the tangle of electrical wires connecting the few blocks of houses that remained. I actually hadn’t come up with the purpose of these wires yet, but I knew I wanted them to link to a vault-like structure outside the town. 

I later changed the name of Liure to Aruykeri, I based the name on an actual location, Akureyri in Greenland.  It isn’t necessarily supposed to be set there, I just thought the name sounded nice. I then started working on some concept art for Aruykeri, the wires, and the outside of the newly named “Elysium Vault”. 

I modelled the following in Maya:

I was very inspired by hostile nuclear architecture, the field of spikes being of specific interest.

I really loved figuring out how to model each element and I frequently had to remind myself not to put too much stuff here as I would be drawing over these later on. I used to (and still kinda do, its a funny situation) HATE 3D modelling, yet making assets for this project helped me find a use for 3D modelling that did not make me want to freak out. 

These 3D models became pieces of artwork! I am currently using the Satellite Dish model for the cover of a new module I am creating. I think I will probably find a way to include it in other covers too. I was, and still am, very proud of these pieces. 

I think the comic book-esque rendering, lighting, and colour choices fit really well with the style of the book. Its different to what I usually do and is a lot simpler, but I don’t think that detracts from them at all.

Character Development

The games I had made or helped make so far worked on the players making their own original characters. Francis had told me a bit about the game The Pale beyond, and I really liked how there was a roster of characters that were all very unique. I implemented this into Elysium, having 6 characters that you could play as, each having a different role and unique mechanics. I also gave backstory to the characters, giving them a purpose to enter the Elysium vault. I figured having a little flavour text explaining each character could help players get in the right mind to roleplay as them. 

The concepts I had for characters were: 

-A healer / nurse,

-A priests - this would tie into the new mechanic I made - Faith Points - and would help with the religious theming of the game,

-An electrician, someone who knew about the wires, 

-An ex Elysium worker wanting to find out what happened in the vault,

-A curious youth finding the truth behind the rumours.

With Francis’ addition of Markus the veteran, that made the cast of 6. I drew up their concepts before making their profile pictures that would be in the book. Here is the line up! Their nationalities aren’t set in stone, you can imagine them to be whatever you like! 

My main thing with the cast was that, although they have a little bit of lore enough to get a sense of their personality, I wanted to leave it open enough for players to decide how they wanted to play their characters. I didn’t even give Bjorn a design under his suit just because he didn’t really need one. One detail I have to add because I think it is quite sweet is that if you look at Danica’s hat, Its actually Griggsy’s hat from his original concept art.

Worldbuilding

Most of my projects, especially my personal ones, are FILLED with reams and reams of lore and stories so much so that most of it just lives in either notes on my phone or just in my head because I simply do not have the time to write it out. 

Elysium is different though, and honestly I really appreciate how Francis explained how I presented the lore in Elysium. I wanted there to be a story there if people wanted it, or for those who aren’t really into heaps of lore, the game could function just fine without it. This is why I implemented the documents within the game, they provide lore and explanations behind the setting for those who want it, whilst also being a form of in-game currency for those who don't. A lot of the game is like this, I left a lot of things somewhat vague to encourage GMs and players alike to get creative with problem solving and setting the scene. 

Problem Solving

This came into play when making the traps section, I spent a long while stressing over making traps with elaborate solutions to them that would be challenging to players, I really found it difficult, and felt overall really intimidated by it. I spoke to Francis a bit about what he thought I should do, when he reminded me about one of the people we play these games with:

“Don't bother making an elaborate way to unlock a door. they (our friend) will probably build a bomb out of a gameboy and a paperclip and blow it to pieces”. 

He was correct. My friend has done that exact thing before. While funny, this made me realize that not every problem needs a laid out solution, leaving problems open ended encourages people to problem solve, and sometimes coming up with wacky unorthodox solutions always beats something pre-planned and thought out.

Setting the tone

At this point the religious themes within Elysium were much more prominent, revolving around imagery combining technology and religious iconography. Other than the biblical names, vague christian themes and imagery, Elysium also focuses on its own strange man-made gods. 

I really like the book I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, and I think especially considering how things are currently, AI is a very foreboding force to many. I personally believe AI is currently being used for reasons that are not going to benefit us in the long run, and with each advancement I find myself fearing it more and more. I reflected this fear in Elysium: despite the very horrifying mutated creatures, gruesome cyborgs and other man made horrors, the biggest man made horror lies within a humble server room at the base of a hellish bunker. 

I was really happy with the concept of the Core and how it interlinks with the main cast, how it is perceived differently by each character based on their backstory, and I think it plays out as quite an impactful end scene for Elysium. 

The Vault's Map

The final mechanic that was new to me was the procedurally generated maps. 

I implemented this mechanic out of my desire to be able to play a uniquely fun game with my friends with minimal prep time. Being a university student with friends who live abroad, its difficult to find time to plan for sessions around my coursework and time zone differences. Over the past two years I spent less and less time playing games with my friends which, while obviously necessary as I wanted to focus my attention on my studies, was a little sad to me as I value those times so much. 

Having Elysium’s procedurally generated dungeon maps, randomized traps, enemy encounters and loot meant that I could quickly whip up a session for them that would be unique each time. I playtested this with two different groups of my friends and in both cases it worked out great. 

Both sessions were unique and since both groups have very different play styles, I was able to adapt the system to work for both and still be as equally interesting. 

Seeing how well this worked out, I actually reskinned this mechanic to include in my other project, Desoter. Elysium gave me that little bit of a boost to inspire me to work on more projects. 

The Vault ahead

Recently I have been working on a new module for Elysium: the Seraph Protocol. In this module I actually re-used the old name Liure and designed a new location that is a little different.

I have a lot planned for the new module, and I’m really excited for how it’s shaping out so far! Its been cool to see how my concept for a story developed into this game, and it makes me so happy that people have downloaded it! I hope people can get as much fun running it for their friends as I have.

- Kenny  

Elysium: The World as a Dungeon

The World as a Dungeon:

Worldbuilding & Elysium

One of the projects I spent the summer months working on was Elysium, a procedurally-generated dungeon crawl set in a post-apocalyptic world. It's all about religious faith and body horror, a dungeon crawl of sheer endurance in which the unfortunate explorers delve deeper and deeper into the Elysium Vault. I love it. I only really worked on it in the manner of layout and wrote very minimal actual content, only providing maybe one page for one of the characters (that being Markus), as well as some ideas for monsters and mechanics. My role was in setting out all the work Kenny had written into its final layout. 

This gave me a different view on the project, being more so a 'tester' than a 'developer', that being the role I usually slot myself in to. I was not writing the lore or mechanics, and was more so observing - perhaps adding or suggesting a little bit here and there - and as such the world develop autonomous of me.

I really, really like Elysium's worldbuilding. The religious horror, the grotesque monsters, the slow unravelling of the company that made them all told through vague descriptions of the Elysium Vault's timeline. It creates a different feeling, I think: for the world of Elysium exists only in the dungeon.

The Elysium Vault - the 'dungeon' - is the driving force behind all of Elysium. It is what the game exists for, its ultimate setting and ultimate purpose. The village of Aruykeri (in which the explorers may rest and pray) is only dedicated a single double-page spread of the project's 40 pages. The world of Elysium is the dungeon, as the dungeon pushes forward its gameplay, mechanics and lore. The mechanics tied to the lore, such as the prayer-answering Tabernacles, the Wires and the importance of Faith, exist to perpetuate the exploration of the dungeon: to interact with these mechanics is to interact with the lore of the game, and that - I think - is what makes it effective. The lore is tied directly to the dungeon, and the dungeon is all there is.

What exposition there is remains to be modular, and I think this is a positive: there is a whole story for Elysium, one that details the timeline of events and degredation of the facility and its occupants. It gives further descriptions of the monsters in a vague catalogue-like manner, explaining how they came to be. Every layer of the megadungeon has its own set of documents that can be discovered and read to uncover what occured to the facility. Each is maybe two sentences long at most. 
The documents also serve to be a currency: take them back to Aruykeri and you can get patched up and exchange them for medicine. It's up to the players for as to how much or how little they actually interact with this lore; when I was testing the game with friends, not knowing much about the setting or the history, I was always on the lookout for them. I was curious to know what happened here, but at the same time, the storytelling vector of the documents is entirely modular: if someone didn't care for reading them, they can be disregarded, used only as currency.

I suppose my take-away from Elysium is the relationship in which the lore of the world has with the mechanics and gameable setting. I'm never a fan of pages upon pages of lore and history to read, particularly when it's just interjected as paragraphs of disorganised text in the midst of whatever book I'm reading. That isn't to say I hate worldbuilding or lore; quite the contrary. I love having exposition and history and something interesting to think about, but I hate - as Josh McCrowell calls it - 'homework' that should dictate how I play the game. It's just not my style: I don't want to read paragraphs of history to know how to play my character. I want to play my character because I find their design or theming interesting: I want to jump into the world and not have to worry about conventions or traintracks to follow; I find that suffocating, not envigorating. 

The lore of Elysium is in opposition to this, not only in its brevity and interpretability but in its connection to the wider setting and mechanics of the game. Elysium is a dungeoncrawl that knows it is a dungeoncrawl. To interact with and learn about its lore is directly beneficial in the gameplay of the dungeoncrawl. Not only do I find this rewarding in a gameplay sense, but I also found that it helped to increase my interest in the world itself, localised as it was to the single location of the dungeon.

-Francis.

Elysium is available for free on our itch.Io.