Chants of Sennaar Blockout
This level was a student project that used the Advanced Locomotion System plugin with some additional Blueprint modifications used to create a Chants of Sennaar-inspired 3rd person level.
Contributions
Designed a stealth level about infiltrating and escaping a barracks
Replicated the post-processing effect from Chants of Sennaar inside Unreal
Implemented a combination lock mechanic
Brainstorming of the warrior area and flowchart
Brainstorming of the devotee area
Concept
The goal of the level was an infiltration mission, so I knew I wanted to have two distinct sections, one of safety and one of danger.
I chose the visual theme of Chants of Sennaar because it is one of my favorite games, and it has a distinct visual style to guide the player that I wanted to replicate.
I created sketches of spaces, mood boards of the areas, and a flowchart of the whole level before blocking it out in engine.
The bottom left, is the semi linear section with two exit options The bottom right the inital flow at the start of the semi linear section The top left is the stealth section introduction The top right is the escape section
Blockout
The first section was a semi-linear exploration section where the player's goal was to infiltrate a gate without a key.
Next was a stealth section where the primary mechanics of the level would be introduced.
Finally, there was an escape section where mastery of the mechanics must be demonstrated to complete the level.
On the left a top down view of the enviornmental hint, in the bottom right the introduction of the mechanic
Puzzle Mechanic
I wanted to pay homage to the language mechanics of Chants of Sennaar, so I implemented a visual combination lock mechanic where the solution to the lock is found in the environment.
The shape the final combination lock makes is the Warrior's language for "key" to open the door to the final escape section of the level.
This beat in the level combines the stealth mechanics with the puzzle mechanics that were tutorialized in the prior two beats.
Cell shading graph
Hatching graph
Unreal Post Processing
Part of the reason Chants of Sennaar was chosen as a visual and thematic inspiration was its flat, simple style that could be replicated with just a level block out.
I broke down the in-game effect in Chants of Sennaar into three main post-processing effects: cell shading, outlines, and a subtle hatching effect.
I replicated and combined each of these effects inside Unreal into a single post-process material starting with a base of this explanation of PBR cell shading.
© 2025 Langston Key
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contact at keylangs@msu.edu