A Lighthouse Story
Position
Game Designer, UI Designer, Project Manager
Description
An atmospheric 3D horror adventure built around environmental puzzle mechanics and stylized 2.5D visual design. Our core design goal was to evoke a deep sense of uncertainty and vulnerability by utilizing extreme scale differences between the character and the environment, while keeping the accessibility simple and engaging.
As the project manager, co-designer, and technical UI programmer, I led a larger team of seven, focusing heavily on keeping the design vision aligned. Collaborating with a second programmer, I engineered the interactive main menu and UI pipeline within a shared repository. I was gaining valuable hands-on experience in version control workflows using Git and SourceTree to coordinate scene management and resolve branching errors efficiently.
Project period
5 month
Project type
3D Adventure, Horror
Used Software
Unity, Rider, Sourcetree
Team size
7
Level Design
Leveldesign First Half
Leveldesign Second Half
Level Design & Player Guidance
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Structured Mechanics Introduction: Designed a linear 2.5D tutorial layout based on Nintendo's philosophy: Introducing mechanics in a safe environment before requiring them to overcome a hazard.
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Atmospheric Pacing & Tension: Blocked out a strict narrative pacing within the level layout, starting with quiet exploration, building up to an interactive chase sequence to teach urgency and concluding with a stealth passage utilizing cover mechanics.
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Clear Visual Layout Intent: Used color-coded, numbered 2D sketches and explicit action callouts ("jump", "big crab") to clearly map out pacing, hazard zones and the critical path toward the lighthouse landmark.
Leveldesign Cabin Concept
Cabin Concept (rebuild in Sims4)
Rapid Layout Prototyping
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Creative Greyboxing Alternatives: Utilized "The Sims 4" as an unconventional, high-speed 3D layout tool to quickly visualize the cabin's spatial dimensions, furniture placement and scale differences before touching the engine.
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Predictive Player Flow: Mapped out the critical path using top-down sketches and 3D mockups with clear visual routing to plan player movement and structural progression through the room.
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Efficient Concept Communication: Documented and communicated design ideas under high time pressure using a mix of numbered quick sketches and cross-software references to keep the development team alligned.
UI Design
First Main Menu Concepts
First Figma Prototype:
UI/UX Prototyping & Interaction Flow
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Diegetic Menu Concepts: Sketched and designed an interactive main menu flow where UI elements mapped directly to physical objects within the world (e.g. using the lighthouse for "Start" and the boat for "Exit") to maximize player immersion.
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Interactive Wireframing in Figma: Built and linked two functional Figma prototypes to map out user flows, test clickable transitions and finalize a book-themed menu concept that serves as a seamless narrative bridge into the game.
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Team Alignment via Prototyping: Shared functional external links to the Figma interactive prototypes within the documentation to ensure clear design communication across the development team.
Second Figma Prototype:
Page Design for Book
Technical UI Implementation & Animation
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Asset Modification & Polish: Integrated a free 3D book-flipping package from the Unity Asset Store, reverse-engineered its code structure and bypassed rendering limitations by synchronizing custom 2D UI fade-in animations with the page-turn sequence.
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Camera & Transform Animations: Animated the main menu camera transitions manually within Unity to create a seamless zoom onto the interactive journal and custom-built a dynamic credits scene featuring keyframed transform animations for a swaying boat on the water.
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Gameplay Trigger Integration: Implemented baseline UI logic for interactive gameplay prompts (tutorial controls) and a dynamic stealth indicator ("searching eye") triggered by physical collider events in the level.
