Deep Stone Crypt: Crypt Security Recreation in Unity

05/03/2021

Hello! My name is Ethan Tuttle and I am the developer responsible for creating the Deep Stone Crypt: Crypt Security Recreation in Unity. My recent focus as a developer has been on designing and building websites from scratch. When I’m not working on websites, I like to work on small projects that focus on areas of interest I have. This project is focused on recreating mechanics from a game I enjoy playing.


In this devblog, I aim to give you some background on what this project was inspired from and why it was created. I also intend to dive deeper into what challenges I faced around each area of development with the goal of sharing what happens in my mind when I tackle these hiccups.




First Things First: Some Background about Deep Stone Crypt




Before I go too deep into the inner workings of the project, I think it important to give some background on this “Deep Stone Crypt.”


Deep Stone Crypt is one of the many raids from a game called Destiny 2. Destiny 2 is a free-to-play online-only multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie. Within the game, there are different activities you can play. For this devblog, I am going to be focusing on the raid activity.


I’d like to start by sharing my definition of a raid in a real world context. A raid can be summarized as a surprise attack by a small force with a focused objective. For example, police may conduct a raid on a suspected drug-trafficking operation in order to clean up the streets before the drugs can be distributed. In the context of Destiny 2, a raid can be summarized as a planned attack by a group of six Guardians (players) with a specific objective. For example, Deep Stone Crypt is a raid where six Guardians enter a Braytech facility, where the first Exos were born, with the objective of uncovering the secrets that lie within. I won't spend any time going into the full story of the raid. If your interested in learning more about what Braytech is and what the Exos are, you can check out the following articles:


https://www.destinypedia.com/Clovis_Bray_(corporation)


https://www.destinypedia.com/Exos


With some context out the way as to what a raid is, let’s get a little more specific on the components of a raid. In Destiny 2, a raid is built out of a set of encounters. Each encounter offers the group of players a new challenge that they have to face and overcome if they hope to complete the raid. For this project, I chose the first encounter of the Deep Stone Crypt Raid. The first encounters of each raid are, in my opinion, the most important as they will teach players the core mechanics they need to know for the entire raid. Later encounters will expand upon the ideas presented to the player in the first encounter. To make sure I had a solid understanding of the raid, I felt that the first encounter would be the best place to start when developing this recreation.


I am deeply fascinated by the way each part of the first encounter was designed in Deep Stone Crypt. This got me thinking about how the developers get all the pieces to work behind the scenes. What better way for me to answer my questions then take a stab at developing the mechanics myself. In the upcoming sections, I’ll break down the different pieces of the encounter and how I went about creating each piece.