Exploring the death rituals was one of my first tasks when I started out as a Technical Designer at Soft Rains. The team didn't have a solid plan on how to approach them at the time, so I was given a long leash to play around with. I had a few strong references in A Mortician's Tale and L.A. Noire. At the time, we wanted to have many death rituals per level, with varying levels of realization, and we considered them side objectives in the game.
L.A. Noire
A higher fidelity reference that includes hand animation when inspecting the body.
A Mortician's Tale
Multiple-step body preparation that includes the use of multiple tools.
We started out with a more interactive approach, similar to our references, letting the player select tools to use and progress through the procedure steps. We iterated to make the experience feel intuitive, but struggled with the pacing shift between the main gameplay and the death ritual experience. Every time the game waited for the player's input, it felt clunky and broke the flow, taking people out of the emotional arc we were building.
Early Prototype - First Iteration
Player presses an interact prompt to enter a death ritual state with a unique overlay. The player follows the instructions in the overlay, using multiple tools to complete various tasks. The death ritual ends when the body is bioremediated.
We learned a lot from these early prototypes. We learned that we could create an intimate, tender moment while sticking to a first-person view by focusing on Dalia's hands and how she touched the remains. And ruled out some of our direct references, too; for example, the hovering hand in L.A. Noire didn't read well with the camera so close to the remains.
Early Prototype - Hovering Hand
Trying to emulate L.A. Noire more closely; having Dalia's hand hover over the body, and the camera follow the hand. The first-person view in this prototype made the whole experience uncomfortable. We quickly walked away from this.
Even breaking the interactions into a few chunks still felt clunky. So we moved towards a single cinematic to capture the moment.
Early Prototype - Breaking Into Chunks
Reducing the amount of actions the player needs to take. Instead, pausing and waiting for an player input to proceed at several stages. Even this approach is clunky and takes the player out of the experience too much. And testing voice over with temporary VO, while having Dalia encounter a character that is about to die.
Early Prototype - A Single Cinematic
Remove the requirement of any interaction from the player. Iteration on the writing. Give Dalia (and the player) a moment to confirm the death before proceeding with the ritual.
The exploration of the death rituals also included considering how these are placed in a level. We learned how valuable set dressing is. We considered gating the death ritual behind some fetch quests for personalized items required to include in the ritual and complete it.
But again, that all seemed to knock the air out of the ritual itself. Not letting the player complete the ritual upon finding the body felt bad. Some of the personalized ritual elements, like coins on the eyes, read silly in first person. We could have pushed through some of these challenges later on, possibly with higher fidelity; for example, if the coins were smaller, and it wasn't the unreal mannequin in the shot.
On the other hand, selecting moments that felt strong and hit as intended despite the placeholder assets felt like stronger choices that would set us up for success and reduce added work down the road.
Early Prototype - Placing coins on the eyes
Testing a different death rite; having Dalia place coins on the deceased's eyes. It looked very silly, so we decided to walk away from it and not gamble that it would work better with a higher-fidelity realization.
Once we started to receive strong, sombre emotional responses from early playtests with folks outside our studio, we knew we had landed on something special. In the process, the place of the death ritual in our game also changed. They became more centred, the focal point in the space they are in. This helped establish a stronger direction for the rituals, but also a higher-production, more bespoke one.
Notes I shared when we started working on the Parker & Walsh Farm level demonstrate this learning:
(Some general thoughts on DRs, some of this is obvious, but worth repeating - I feel.)
a death ritual should be rooted in the scene around it - the scene should tell a story about that person, how they ended up there, how they died, and so on...
the player should have some space to sit with the emotional impact of it, there should be some build-up to the reveal of the space where the remains are, and some ramp-off to sit with it.
the death ritual shouldn't be tucked away - like, it's not hiding in a drawer haha - it should be very evident when you enter the space
throughout the level, as the player approaches the DR space, there should be opportunities to learn about the deceased, their connection to the space, and the people around them. So by the time the player gets to the remains - they should have "met" the deceased.
All of this meant that we would have fewer death rituals in the game, and each would be expensive to produce.
Early Prototype - Validated Proof of Concept
The placement of the death ritual is integrated into the scene. Music starts building as soon as the player enters the space, and Dalia reacts to the body and the scene soon after. The scene conveys what may have happened to the deceased, allowing the player to explore and speculate before engaging the remains. Interacting with the body triggers an animation sequence that guides the entire procedure, culminating in the bioremediation of the remains.
Bioremediation is a particle effect that covers the body and conceals its disappearance; effectively "turning the body into a flower". After the player regains control, Dalia reacts to the experience -- letting the player sit with the emotional impact longer. And this experience "hits" with early playtesters, even with temp assets.
At this point, we were really confident that we could achieve the desired emotional outcome of the death rituals. At the same time, we were solidifying the core loop of Ambrosia Sky, defining its feature sets, scoping, and building out our production pipelines.
As part of this reevaluation, we decided to lean on the strength of our existing team. That's when Kait, our Narrative Director, had the idea to lean more on our 2D and comic art experts, and deliver the key frame moments with comic panels. It was a big shift and a big lift for those art pieces, but I felt confident we could hit the mark. We've already shown that we could hit the emotional response with temp assets, a few keyframe anims, and choice music. I was convinced that we could replace the key frames with still images, and we had much higher confidence in achieving high-quality images than in the animations.
Putting together a quick prototype with still images of those key frames allowed us to communicate the idea to the team and to onboard our concept artist, Vash, to start working on the comic panels. It also helped build confidence in this direction among the folks working on the feature.
Comic Style Prototype - First Iteration
Use the key frames of the full animation sequence to generate four comic panels that appear on top of the remains. The bioremediation particles are visualized on the comic panels and the body, connecting the player back to the scene at the end of the sequence. Music continues to play after the player regains control, allowing the player to sit with the experience.
At this time, the team decided to take on a challenge; instead of recreating a death ritual we already knew worked, we picked a new character to prove out this new approach. The team picked Gerald; if we could make people feel something for this stubborn, grumpy old man, then we could deliver on all our other death rituals with this approach.
In response to my hesitation to take on a risk, Kait pointed out that having already proven out an approach for a straightforward ritual, picking a character that broke the mould would help us make sure that we could both achieve the emotional experience with a crochetchy character, as well as make sure that our direction could support a range of emotional tones. So we began working on the first iteration of Gerald’s death ritual.
Comic Style Prototype - sketches for panels and text
Using a more complex comic-style layout that better utilizes negative space and layers panels within the physical space. The personal testimony is delivered via text that appears atop the panels after they have all been revealed. The sequence pauses before bioremediation, letting the player take it all in before it disappears.
Leaning on all our learning from the validated prototype, we started working on the level layout for Parker & Walsh Farm. We placed the death ritual prototype in its intended location in the level and began iterating on it in the context of the surrounding level.
Comic Style Prototype - Placed in Greybox Level
Placing Gerald's death ritual in an early version of the Parker & Walsh Farm level. Seeing the space we have to build up for the emotional impact, and the type of things the player could be doing before and after the ritual. Closer to final render on some panels and seeing how they render in-game.
Placing the death ritual in the level made it easy to demonstrate how important it was to give the music space to build. It wasn't enough to start playing the music when the ritual began; the tone had to build before the player approached the remains.
We couldn't just rely on distance to build up the music. We felt that most players would spend enough time approaching Gerald in the apartment, but wanted to account for those who traverse faster or use a shortcut. We implemented a dynamic buildup with various triggers throughout the apartment to respond to the player’s exploration patterns.
Comic Style Prototype - Dynamic Music Escalation
Testing dynamic music escalation; entering the room, leaving the room, leaving the room after exploring a bit. The music escalates using triggers set up in Gerald's apartment, spiralling up to the location of the remains. Another layer of escalation in the vocals when bioremediation begins. And ramping down for some time after the player regains control. Also showing some progress on panel rendering.
Continuing the iteration of the comic panel approach, we loosened the first-person camera rule, which allowed the panel reveal and framing to be more dynamic.
Comic Style Prototype - Art Pass
Progress on art assets, including a modular mesh for bodies in the game, posed for Gerald. "He's... older" line from Dalia doesn't work with the realized model. A more dynamic camera to frame the scene and the panels. The text appears with the panels to maintain the emotional connection between the text and the panels. Bringing back the temporary voice-over to test the impact of it. Tuning the lighting and rendering on the panels for better colour representation. Better input prompt to begin bioremediation. This version increases the confidence in this direction for the rest of the team.
Eventually, I was mostly hands-off with the death rituals, and the feature's realization was driven more by art, narrative, and music. We got more animation support and were able to bring back some of those intimate first-person perspectives of Dalia interacting with the deceased. Textures and set-dressing were strengthening the existing structure of the emotional experience.
Comic Style Prototype - Finalizing Assets
Finalized meshes. Texturing on all assets. Set design. Lighting pass. Dalia animations, leading up to the panels, and after bioremediation. Finalized bioremediation particles and post-bioremediation bloom. Sound design pass.
It was incredible watching the death ritual evolve; Kai's and Harmony's took on whole new identities with rich stories. I wrote Kai's personal testimony, and the team brought it to life.
Ultimately, the death rituals perfectly encapsulate the interdisciplinary strength of our team. They are the part of our game touched by most hands, and they were made better for it.
Final Version - Gerald's Death Ritual
Final assets; final set design and lighting pass. Voiceover performances for Gerald's personal testimony and Dalia’s reactions.
If you want to know more about the development of Ambrosia Sky, take a look at our prior dev logs that cover our main character Dalia, the role of a Scarab, the art & audio direction of the game, a look at the tech & design behind our cleaning mechanics, an in-depth look at level design, and an overview of what Ambrosia Sky is.
If you still haven't picked up Ambrosia Sky, now is a great time to do so! The game is currently on sale for 20% for a limited time, and the Act Two free update arrives soon.