This is a 2D puzzle platformer in which you are a child navigating a dreamscape full of subconscious nightmares with fears of hospitals, clowns, teeth rotting, etc. In partnership with Feenx Games as a publisher, I operated as studio executive and executive producer for a studio of 23 people consisting of art, animation, sound, design, development, and production.

The main character slowly took shape as a dreaming child replete with long, dragging hat and pajamas. Our initial idea was to do a low-poly isometric 2d adventure game, which was almost immediately scrapped. We settled on a 2d puzzle platformer, and got moving on concept art for different mood boards for environments and enemies and workshopped combat and exploration abilities.

During the initial asset building process I jumped around into a little bit of everything. I led level design, teaching some of the more junior designers about level design methodology, and tested all levels with multiple rounds of feedback. I worked with the art director and sound directors, giving thorough feedback and working with the artists and engineers directly. The biggest project during this process was writing out all design documentation for the main character’s mechanics, the animations for each asset required, and all enemy actions, behaviors, and assets needed. 

As a first release, I am thrilled at the outcome. It contains all original assets, sounds great and creepy, and the theming is exactly what we were aiming for. I am so thrilled that we were able to release this game as it set me on the path to where I am now. The final lesson I learned was to just start making games and take what I’ve learned and keep improving on each subsequent project.

Working with my art lead to determine how the main character would function and why. We ended up with a small, androgynous child. The nightmare theme evolved from this as well.