Bleaklight

Bleaklight is a survival horror game built from the ground up by myself and one coworker. I was responsible for every part of development besides programming: Game design, level design, sprite art, music, sound effects, writing and more.  Though the project was eventually cancelled, the final version had over an hour of playable content.

Since my duties on the project were so broad, I learned a lot about aspects of development I’d never tackled before. It was my first time recording and editing my own sound effects. Though I’d created sprite art prior, the level of detail and animation was much higher, and required companion documents to be plugged into our proprietary engine. All the extra work involved meant I needed to provide more precise documentation on every map and event before work on them began.

Cooperation was another challenge we had to grapple with. Not because we couldn’t work together, but because early on we worked long stretches without communicating. One example of this occurred when I created an animated sprite for an enemy that rose from ground and exploded when the player drew near. When I showed it to my coworker, the first thing he mentioned was that its rising obelisk shape looked decidedly not safe for work. This was less funny at the time, when it represented dozens of hours of wasted animation. I came away with an increased appreciation for regular team check-ins.