Between August - December 2023, working with a team of 10 students, I served as the UX Design and Art Lead on an indie game project, Camp Splinterwood - a simple 3D horror puzzle game where the player must utilize a flashlight to ward off a monster as they explore an abandoned camp. We had 4-5 months to take the game though the complete development cycle and publish it online.


I was responsible for leading the user interface and art direction of the game, designing and developing the interface and 2D assets, concept work, play-testing, and collecting user feedback.

“How do we create a horror game that conceals the monster as much as possible and instill in the player the feeling of being watched, all while avoiding combat and stereotypical aspects of the genre like jump-scares?”

Our goal was simple, to instill in the player the feelings of being watched and dread, create an interesting map to explore and solve, develope enemy AI that is engaging and scary, and to provide a resource to defend yourself that is imperfect but reliable.

Horror game fans, ages 12 and up, looking for an exciting horror exploration game, centered around a nostalgic childhood location, a summer camp.

For Camp Splinterwood, I began with research into other games in the horror genre with similar mechanics to our own, with the goal to understand what UI and interface elements help add to their final products.

Post-research, I began to concept and iterate on various mechanics and UI elements, detailing their visuals, layout, and functionality. Through iterative design, testing, and feedback, the final interface was honed to be simplistic to navigate, easily understandable, and conveyed the tone and artistic style of the experience.

Early phases of the project were marked by concept work and design ideration. The goal here was to generate ideas on how to communicate with the player the game's information, what mechanics would that impact, and to plan out UI layouts.

These designs were refined over several months, evolving with each milestone. As we received monthly feedback from playtesters, fonts were finalized, the artistic style took shape, and new features were developed - or even cut - the interface grew and changed wildly along side the game.

I wish I could show you every part of the process!

Throughout each milestone build, the interface the game was refined further and further as 2D assets were developed, feedback was implemented, and UI elements were honed.

After five months of diligent work, concepting, designing, gathering feedback, and iterating, all of the in-game art, UI, animations, and more were successfully implemented by our programmers.

By the end of the project, our team successful shipped the game onto itch.io within the 4-5 month time limit. We gained high praise from professor Ray Hazlip, who oversaw the project’s development, giving us high marks for successfully pulling off the horror genre in such a short time limit.

Not only that, but the game received positive reviews on itch! Many people made let’s plays and recordings of their playthrough on YouTube, with one commenter stating “one of the spookiest games I've played in awhile. Really enjoyed it! Keep up the good work!”